


The Fire Truck of Love

by Soph_Writes_118



Category: 9-1-1 (TV), S.W.A.T. (TV 2017)
Genre: Boys In Love, Christmas, Dare, Falling In Love, Firehouse 118 Family Feels (9-1-1 TV), Firehouse 118 as Family (9-1-1 TV), First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Holidays, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mistletoe, Mutual Pining, Reindeer, Supportive Firehouse 118 Crew (9-1-1 TV), Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27842545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soph_Writes_118/pseuds/Soph_Writes_118
Summary: When Chimney decides to decorate the 118's truck with mistletoe for the holidays and spread a little love to the people of Los Angeles, festive chaos ensues. Will the magic of the mistletoe be enough to bring our two favourite clueless firefighters together at last?
Relationships: Athena Grant/Bobby Nash, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Evan “Buck” Buckley & Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV), Henrietta "Hen" Wilson/Karen Wilson, Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Comments: 53
Kudos: 360





	1. Run, Rudolph, Run

**Author's Note:**

> Happy December! I have been playing around with this idea since the summer, and I am so excited to finally share it. Hope you enjoy reading. 
> 
> Set in a non-Covid world, as mistletoe and Covid don't really mix, and because I wanted to include pregnant Maddie and her hormones.
> 
> 4 chapters in total - updates every Wednesday.

Amazing cover art by the lovely [Ro_Nordmann](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro_Nordmann/pseuds/Ro_Nordmann) 😍

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“Santa’s crashed on the 405!”

*

The 118 crawled through standstill December traffic. As they reached the scene of the collision, cars were scattered everywhere, a bright red sleigh trimmed with gold had tipped off a trailer, and a herd of panicked reindeer ran loose across the freeway.

“OK, I see one injured party so far,” Bobby said, gesturing under the sleigh. “Let’s get them treated, and then we’ll help with crowd control.”

Athena strode out of the carnage towards them, carrying a rope fashioned into a lasso.

“What have we got here?” Bobby asked.

“Besides a rodeo,” Chim added, eyeing the rope with a smirk, and Athena shot him a glare that made him duck behind Hen.

“Funnily enough we don’t get many escaped reindeer in Los Angeles,” she retorted. “And my round-up skills are a little rusty.”

“We’ll take care of that in a minute,” Bobby assured her. “First up, our patient.”

“Kristen Miller, thirty-two. She broke down in that LA traffic we all love so much, and while she was checking on her reindeer a stolen vehicle lost control and slammed into the trailer, crushing her under the sleigh.”

“Where’s the suspect vehicle now?” Bobby asked.

“Took off without stopping. I’ve got an APB out, it won’t be long before we catch up with them. I’m more worried about Kristen, she’s complaining of chest pains.”

Kristen was pinned to the road by her chest. Her legs had somehow slotted through the gap between the runners and the bottom of the sleigh, leaving them intact, but her breathing came fast and shallow as sweat poured down her pale face.

“Hey Kristen, my name is Hen. We’re going to get you out of here. How are you feeling?”

“So stupid,” she gasped, forcing the words out. “I must...be the first Mrs Claus to be...crushed by my own sleigh.”

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Hen said reassuringly. “And believe me, they’ll be regretting the day they got behind the wheel once Sergeant Grant catches up with them.”

“Is it just you or is there a Mr Claus?” Chim asked, trying to distract Kristen while Hen checked her vitals.

“No...it’s just me and my team of girls. My wife and I run the business...she’s up in Seattle already...setting up for the holidays. I was supposed to join her after we finished the LA Christmas fairs.”

“Did you say your reindeer are all female?” Hen asked.

“Yes...female reindeer keep their antlers all year round. So Santa’s reindeer that you see on Christmas cards? Actually all girls.”

“I respect that,” Hen smiled. “Makes sense too. Behind every great man...”

“Is a team of nine women with pointy antlers,” Kristen smiled too, then winced in pain.

“OK, Kristen, we’re going to get this sleigh off you, and then we’ll round up your girls,” Bobby said.

“How long has she been here?” Hen asked Athena.

“I would say close on fifteen minutes.”

“Then we need to get her moved ASAP,” Hen said. She met Chim’s gaze and spoke rapid medic to him. “I’m concerned that the pressure on her chest is going to cause damage to the muscle sarcolemma. If the membrane is permeated and the cellular contents start to leak...”

“Then we’ll have a serious problem on our hands,” he summarised, and Hen nodded.

“OK, in English?” Buck asked, as he, Eddie and Bobby examined the sleigh for the best angle to lift it off Kristen.

“If the covering of her muscle fibres gets damaged, they’ll be compromised and things could leak that shouldn’t leak,” Eddie said. “If the tissue can’t take on oxygen, she’ll switch to anaerobic respiration, and we’ll see a significant build up in lactic acid levels.”

“What he said,” Chim agreed, without looking up.

“I hate how impressive you are,” Buck said, shaking his head at Eddie.

“Well we all know that’s a blatant lie,” Chim muttered.

“Can we focus, please?” Bobby cut in. “Buck, Eddie, on three. One, two, three!”

They heaved, the sleigh lifted off of Kristen’s chest, and Hen and Chim slid her away onto the back board they had waiting. As they hoisted her up onto a stretcher, Kristen craned her head wildly to the side.

“My girls...are they gonna be OK?”

“We got our best boys on it,” Hen said, falling back on her trusted line. Buck and Eddie were their best firefighters for sure. But they were a little more used to dealing with collapsing buildings and fires than escaped reindeer.

“Can we stay...until I know they’re safe?”

Hen and Chim glanced at each other.

“Please.”

“Better hurry this up, Cap!” Hen called.

“OK guys, nice and easy now,” Bobby said, moving in with Athena’s donated rope, directing Buck and Eddie with his other hand.

“You did reindeer wrangling at Camp Ouija Board too?” Chim asked.

“Camp Weegeewoggin,” Bobby corrected. “We visited horse ranches and went on cowboy trails.”

“In Minnesota?”

“Someone’s looking at truck cleaning duties for the next two weeks...”

Chim ducked his head rapidly back over Kristen.

“OK, Kristen, what are your reindeer called?” Bobby asked.

“I named them all for Santa’s reindeer...that’s Dancer next to you. You can see their names...on their harnesses.”

Bobby inched closer, speaking soft and low to her, and within seconds he’d slipped a rope around her antlers and was leading her back to the trailer, where Officer Williams from Athena’s patrol waited to secure her.

“Your turn, Buck,” Bobby said.

“They’re so big,” he marvelled.

“So are you,” Chim called. “You’re bigger than they are.”

“I don’t see you out here helping, Chim.”

“Have you seen those antlers? You’ve got this one, Buck.”

“They’re usually very docile,” Kristen said. “They’re just...spooked...by the crash.”

“OK. No problem. How hard can it be?”

Buck headed for Blitzen, who took one look at him sneaking towards her and skittered away.

“Never known a woman to turn you down so quickly, Buckaroo.”

“Shut up, Chim.”

Just across from him, Eddie was having a little more luck with Comet.

“Hey Comet,” he shushed softly, sidling up alongside her and rubbing a hand across her muzzle, before slipping a rope carefully over her head and stroking her nose.

“How are you good at this too?” Buck asked incredulously, pausing in his pursuit of Blitzen. Eddie shrugged.

“Lotta horse ranches in Texas.”

Buck gawped at him, stroking Comet’s nose absently, and Athena rolled her eyes.

“I’m glad Maddie’s not here to see these girls,” Buck said. “Her pregnancy hormones are insane at the moment, she cries at everything.”

Eddie laughed.

“In my experience, when that happens, you give a crying pregnant woman anything she wants.”

“Is that the same tactic you use with Buck?” Hen asked.

“Hey, I have ears.”

“Go and play with the reindeer, Buckaroo, this is grown up talk,” Chim said. Buck pulled a face at him, but turned away obediently and headed for Dasher, who promptly took off across the road, leaving him in the dust.

“I thought golden retrievers were _good_ at retrieving,” Eddie laughed as he passed him on the way to the trailer with Comet. Buck shot him a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

“Hey, not all retrievers are friendly. Don’t make me bite you to prove it.”

Eddie’s felt a jolt in the pit of his stomach at the images flashing through his mind at Buck’s words, and hurried Comet away to the trailer as his face heated up.

As Bobby, Eddie and Buck careered across the freeway rounding up reindeer, a giant armoured car, more tank than regular car, inched its way through the traffic behind them, blue lights flashing. They pulled up short of the scene and a passenger jumped down, the other occupants crowding round the windows. Athena saw one of them filming the chaos behind her, and strode over to the handsome, muscular black officer in S.W.A.T. gear leaning against the side of the car.

“Sergeant Grant,” he called.

“Sergeant Harrelson.”

Daniel ‘Hondo’ Harrelson smiled at her.

“Good to see you back out on the streets after what happened.”

“Been back a few months now. How are you, Hondo? It’s been a minute.”

“Can’t complain. But we sure could use your help right now. We got snarled up in all this traffic, and there’s no exit close behind to get us off the 405. We’re needed at an armed bank robbery in progress. Any chance we can get Black Betty around this mess and out the other side?”

Athena sighed.

“I’ll speak to my husband.”

“Your husband?”

“Yes, he’s the fire captain, or in this case, the Reindeer Whisperer.”

Athena turned and hollered over her shoulder.

“Captain Nash!”

Bobby strode across the road to them, leading Vixen the reindeer with him.

“Any chance these fine officers will be able to get through before their armed bank robber makes it across state lines?”

“I’m sure we’ll be able to hurry it up a little,” Bobby said. “Buck, Eddie!” he shouted. “How are we doing?”

“Almost there, Cap!” Buck shouted back, and the reindeer he’d been sneaking up on started and skittered away. Laughter echoed out of Black Betty.

“Jim Street, Chris Alonso, get back in there and act with some professionalism!” Athena shouted to them, without heat, and they ducked back into the interior of the car.

“You not gonna tell me off?” the driver asked, flashing her a surfer boy grin.

“I know better than that, Dominique Luca,” Athena retorted.

Buck and Eddie had decided to join forces, with decidedly more success. As Eddie slipped the rope over the antlers of another reindeer, and Buck stroked her nose and murmured to her, Hen leaned over to speak to Kristen.

“Which reindeer is that?”

Kristen smiled knowingly.

“That’s Cupid. I called her that when she was still a calf...but she does have a habit of setting people up...she’s like walking mistletoe.”

Hen sniggered as she and Chim exchanged a look.

“You couldn’t make that up,” Chim said, shaking his head.

“Are they a couple?” Kristen asked.

Chim snorted.

“They’re a couple of clueless idiots.”

A rustling noise drew their attention to Officer Williams, who had found a bag of reindeer feed in the back of the trailer and was putting it to good use.

“Hey, that’s cheating you know!” Buck called, as the remaining reindeer flocked eagerly to him.

“And that’s why he’s a police officer,” Athena said. “Using his brains rather trying to be some kind of reindeer rancher.” She arched an eyebrow at her husband as she spoke.

As the final reindeer were cleared from the 405, S.W.A.T. took off in pursuit of their bank robber and Kristen was lifted onto the ambulance. Buck asked to ride with her so he could quiz her on reindeer, and when he met them at the hospital, Chim shot Eddie a weary look.

“Good luck,” he said. Eddie frowned.

“Why?”

“The human encyclopaedia is on top form today. You’re gonna have fun with him and Christopher tonight.”

Buck jumped off the ambulance, saw Eddie and zoned straight in on him.

“Hey Eddie, did you know that reindeer can regulate their body temperature by changing how they breathe? And their eyes change colour in the winter! Because it can be dark for up to 24 hours a day, their eyes change from golden-brown to blue to reduce the amount of light reflected out of their eyes!”

*

Back at the fire house, Bobby put them to work on decoration detail. In a few days’ time their station would be open to the public for the LAFD Christmas Lights Trail, raising money for a local youth centre. Other fire houses across the city were throwing open their doors on different days to visitors, offering food and drink and a tour of the station before switching on their Christmas lights.

The 118 were last on the list this year, and as a result they’d been a bit slack about decorating. Every shift had been assigned a section of the fire house to decorate, and thanks to the night shift, an inflatable Santa and an inflatable snowman already bobbed outside the front of the station and two trees sat either side of the doors just inside. As they tackled the boxes of tinsel and lights and baubles waiting to be hung on their designated tree, Chim strolled out of the locker room with a suspiciously large smile and one hand behind his back.

“OK team, announcement time!”

“Maddie’s pregnant? Think we got that memo already, Chim,” Hen said.

“Yeah, and for the record, eww,” Buck added.

“ _Eww?_ What are you, eight? Grown ups have sex Buckaroo, thought you of all people knew that by now.”

“It’s just kinda gross when it’s my _sister_ you’ve knocked up.”

“Anyway...” Bobby interrupted, and Chim got back on topic.

“ _Anyway_ , for one week only, we will be spreading a little festive cheer and love to the good people of Los Angeles, with a special emphasis on that last part. We are gonna be the Fire Truck of Love!”

He whipped the hand behind his back out to reveal several sprigs of mistletoe.

“The what…?” Eddie asked warily, from where he balanced on top of a stepladder, unravelling a string of lights.

“The Fire Truck of Love!”

“I thought Buck already called it that two years ago?” Hen quipped, helping Eddie wind the lights around the tree and regretting getting Chim that double shot for his morning coffee.

“Hey!” Buck protested, looking up from the tinsel he was untangling. “I was –”

“Going through a phase...” Chim, Eddie and Hen responded in unison.

“Exactly, I’m older and more responsible now,” Buck said, getting to his feet and stretching, then throwing a rope of tinsel up to Eddie.  
“Oh yeah? So it wasn’t you who tried to convince those nuns on Halloween that Eddie was a vampire?” Chim said, pointing the mistletoe at him for emphasis.

“ _What?_ ”

“It’s nuns, you always get a free pass with nuns...”

“Is that why they refused to let me check them over for injuries?” Eddie asked, twisting round on the top of the stepladder to look accusingly at Buck.

“I told them the tall, dark and handsome guys are always the vampires, and that you hadn’t been with us that long because you transferred from Texas in mysterious circumstances...”

“You’re _so_ dead,” Eddie said, jabbing a finger at him threateningly, and trying not to read into the compliment.

“Actually, they thought you were,” Buck quipped, smirking.

“I’m gonna wipe that smile off your face, Buckley, just you wait.”

“So what’s the deal, Chim?” Hen interrupted, bringing them back to Chimney’s plan. “We go around forcing people to kiss each other if they caught under the mistletoe together? Sounds like the Fire Truck of Lawsuits to me...”

“I think Buck knows something about that one too,” Eddie said dryly.

“OK, I see how this is…‘Everybody Pile in on Buck Day’...”

“Yes, Hen, that is basically the idea,” Chim said, ignoring them and catching his best friend’s eye. “Come on, it’ll be like our very own romantic comedy. Who knows, we might even be able to set up a couple who are meant to be but are just too afraid to make the leap.”

Chim shot a pointed look at Buck and Eddie, neither of whom noticed, and Hen shook her head, fighting a smile.

“So you couldn’t just be content with putting out fires and rescuing people from themselves, Chim? Now you’re playing matchmaker?” Eddie asked, looking half-amused, half-concerned as he took the star tree topper from Hen.

“Yeah, I mean, if you’re bored at home I’m sure if I tell Maddie she’ll have a list of jobs for you to do,” Buck added, holding the ladder still for Eddie as he stretched up to fix the star to the top of the tree. “Maybe you should let me do that,” he added, watching Eddie balance on tip toes to reach the highest branch.

“Just because you’re taller, doesn’t make you more qualified. I decorate our tree at home every year just fine.”

“That thing you bought last year was a tiny, pathetic excuse for a Christmas tree. That’s why I’m coming with you to pick one tonight, so Chris doesn’t have to live with the embarrassment two years running.”

“Scrooges,” Chim muttered, shaking his head dismissively and heading in the direction of their truck. “But it doesn’t matter what you think,” he called over his shoulder. “Cap’s cleared it.”

“You agreed to this, Bobby?”

Their captain didn’t even look up from where he knelt examining a box of decorations.

“Yes I did, Buck. As long as it doesn’t get in the way of doing our jobs, I think it’s perfectly fine to spread a bit of festive cheer. You’re lucky it’s just this week: he wanted the whole of December.”

“Do you know how much extra work you’ve given us, Chim?” Buck said, stepping back as Eddie descended the ladder to ground level. “Eddie and I’ll be trying to dodge every single girl in the city.”

“Only the ones who like boys...” Hen said, readjusting the end of the string of lights.

“Fair point.”

“...And don’t forget all those guys you’ll be dodging too.”

“Thanks, Hen.”

“Never known you to turn down free kisses if they were being offered, Buckley.”

“That was the old Buck, Chim. I’m not like that anymore.”

“Well, we’ll see how long that attitude lasts with this up,” Chim said, waving a sprig of mistletoe at him threateningly from the top of their truck. Eddie’s gaze strayed to Bobby, who was staring at the box of decorations in front of him in confusion.

“What’s up, Cap?”

“I’m not sure we can use these.”

“Why not?” Hen asked, moving to peer over his shoulder.

“Because I think Athena would have to arrest us all if we put these on a tree and invited children round to look at them.”

Bobby held up two decorations. One was of a naked male firefighter wearing just his helmet and boots and carrying a candy cane. The other was of a penis wearing a Santa hat.

Buck snorted and Hen rolled her eyes.

“What the hell are these?” Chim asked.

“These can’t be our decorations?” Eddie said, his eyebrows high.

“I bet it’s those jackasses from the 105,” Hen said, shaking her head. “This is exactly the sort of thing I’d expect those neanderthals to have on their tree. They must have swapped them with ours.”

“Do you reckon they’re life-size?” Buck asked, and Eddie spluttered with laughter.

“What, you reckon the 105 modelled these on themselves?”

“Well they certainly weren’t modelled on any of us.”

“And how would you know that, Buckaroo?” Chim asked.

“Educated guess,” Buck mumbled, blushing.

“You know, for a bunch of homophobic dumbasses, these decorations are pretty homoerotic,” Hen commented.

“Maybe that’s why they got rid of them,” Chim suggested. “Pretty hard to pretend you don’t like guys when you literally have a tree full of dicks.”

“Well we’d better find some alternatives,” Bobby said. “I see a trip to Walmart in your immediate futures.”

“Before we do that,” Buck said, reaching behind him for a small bowl next to the tree. “It’s time to choose your Secret Santas for this year.” He shook the bowl and shuffled the names inside, then offered it to Bobby. “The theme is Christmas sweaters, the bolder and uglier the better. You have until the end of the week to find them, and you have to wear them when we go ice skating. Maddie, Karen and Athena have already drawn theirs.”

There were mixed reactions to the names the 118 drew. Bobby kept a straight face that gave nothing away. Hen smirked at the name she read, and hurriedly tucked the name into her pocket so no one could read it. And Chimney whooped when he unfolded his name.

“You can’t have Maddie,” Hen warned him.

“I don’t _want_ Maddie. Have you ever tried to buy clothing for a pregnant woman? Buck’s right about those hormones, they’re off the charts. And she’s particularly sensitive about her clothes right now. I pity whoever does get her!”

Eddie, who had just drawn his name, shot Chimney an alarmed look that only Buck picked up on. He made a mental note to slip him some ideas for good maternity sweaters later, and took the final name out of the bowl.

_Eddie_

Buck tried to hide his smile, but clearly not quickly enough.

“I see you’re happy with your pick too,” Hen commented. Buck shrugged and tried to look nonchalant.

“I’m just pumped for the holidays,” he replied. Hen looked sceptical, but before she could respond, the alarm rang, and decorating was temporarily forgotten as they tucked their names into pockets and headed for their vehicles.

“I say we make a pact,” Eddie muttered darkly as he and Buck climbed onto the truck, eyeing the mistletoe and giving it a wide berth. “Keep each other away from _that_ at all costs.”

Buck considered it. Having met a lot of men and women in LA through their job, he knew the odds of meeting someone he actually wanted to kiss under the mistletoe were slim. The thought of being forced into kissing any stranger who trapped him under this evil Christmas plant in the next week filled him with dread.

Buck 1.0 would have seen it a challenge. But all Buck could think now was that the one person he would happily get caught with this week was offering him an out. Which meant Eddie wouldn’t be kissing anyone else either.

Buck sighed. He could deprive himself and keep his feelings hidden. He’d been doing a pretty good job of it the past two years. So he held out a hand to shake on it.

“Deal.”

*

To everyone’s surprise, Chim’s Fire Truck of Love was a success. When they parked up at Walmart to stock up on replacement decorations, they came back out to find giggling teenagers scattering from underneath the mistletoe. When they met Athena at a call she also took advantage of their festive decorations to swoop in on Bobby for a steamy kiss that was met with whoops and laughter from the 118.

“Get a room!” Buck yelled, and Athena shot him her trademark eyebrow arch.

“I would choose your words carefully, Buck. Especially when I’ve just been sent this.”

She turned her phone around, and they all crowded in on a video of Buck, Eddie and Bobby, reindeer wrangling to a soundtrack of _Run, Rudolph, Run_.

“I think your sister would enjoy watching this and sharing it with the other 9-1-1 dispatchers,” Athena threatened, and Buck pulled a face at her.

“Oh come on, Athena. She already makes fun of me like it’s an Olympic sport.”

“That’s her job,” Chim said.

“Who made this?” Eddie laughed, still watching the video.

“Some bored S.W.A.T. officers with too much time on their hands.”

“And that’s just what _they_ got,” Hen said. “I imagine someone on social media will have sent their video to the local news channels by now.”

Buck groaned.

“I don’t wanna be on the news _again_.”

“Hey, it could be worse,” Eddie grinned at him and clapped a hand to his shoulder. “They could have caught that moment you fell on your ass trying to throw that lasso.”

“I hate you all.”

*

Their only fire of the day was to a burned out apartment. The occupant, a middle-aged woman, had fallen asleep while lit candles burned in the next room. When they set light to the curtains, the flames quickly spread throughout the apartment, cutting her off from the door, and she had to jump from the window onto an inflatable mattress below. As Hen and Chim checked her over, Buck and Eddie were approached by a middle-aged man.

“Is Amina going to be OK? I’m Victor, her neighbour.”

“She’ll be fine,” Eddie reassured him. “But I’m not so sure about her house.”

Victor frowned, face full of concern.

“Amina doesn’t have any family here. She fled the war in Syria for the United States two years ago. Her whole family were killed, she was the only survivor. She lights candles for them every December to remember them.”

“That’s awful,” Buck said, his face full of sympathy. Victor nodded.

“And despite everything she’s always so positive. She works two jobs, looks out for her neighbours. She doesn’t deserve this after everything else she’s already been through. Where will she stay over Christmas?”

“Maybe a homeless refuge?” Eddie asked, looking to Buck for confirmation.

“The city have bridge shelters for people who are temporarily homeless. I’m sure some of those are specifically women’s shelters,” Buck replied. “Let me check with Bobby.”

He darted away to speak to their captain, leaving Eddie with the neighbour.

“Are you and Amina close?” Eddie asked. Victor’s face softened.

“Since she moved here a year ago, I tried to look out for her, to be a good neighbour. I grew up in a close community, and so did she, and it’s hard to find something like that now. Once she told me her story I made sure to check in with her more often, and we became friends. We’ve had dinner a few times – she’s the most wonderful cook – and I really enjoy her company. I admire her courage, moving so many thousands of miles from everything she ever knew to start a new life, all on her own.”

“It sounds like she means a lot to you,” Eddie said.

“She does.” Victor paused and dropped his voice before he spoke again. “I’ve always carried a bit of a torch for her, to tell you the truth. I just never had the courage to tell her.” He sighed and looked wistfully across the street. “I wonder if I left it too late in life to be falling in love.”

“I don’t think so,” Eddie said. “I don’t believe love carries an expiry date. We don’t get to decide when someone comes into our life and changes it forever.”

He felt his eyes seeking Buck out as he spoke, drawn to him like the pull of a magnet. He was talking to Amina, empathy etched on every line of his face. Athena often mentioned Buck’s heart of gold, and she wasn’t wrong. Eddie never failed to be impressed by the depth of his compassion, even for total strangers.

Victor was watching him.

“You two are close?”

Eddie blinked. He hadn’t realised he was staring at Buck. He glanced back at Victor and nodded.

“He’s my best friend.”

Buck came back, beaming.

“So we’ve made some calls, and we’ve managed to find Amina a space in the Gardner Street Women’s Bridge Housing Center, just off Sunset Boulevard. She can stay until the New Year, plenty of time to find somewhere new to live.”

“So far away,” Victor said quietly.

“You know,” Eddie said, revisiting the wisdom he had passed on to Chim just a few months ago. “Tomorrow’s not promised to anyone. If you love her, you should tell her.”

Buck gawped at them both, wondering how much he’d missed while he’d been talking to Bobby. Victor frowned, turning Eddie’s words over in his mind. Eddie watched him calmly, noticing when his expression shifted from indecision to resolve.

“You’re right.”

Victor set off across the street to where Amina stood talking to Hen and Athena. As luck would have it, they were next to their truck, and when Victor strode purposefully over to Amina and beckoned her away to speak privately, they stopped directly under the mistletoe. Buck took off after him, grabbing Eddie’s arm and dragging him with him.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to hear this.”

“Didn’t know you were such a romantic.”

“I’m an insufferable romantic. I just never found the right person to be a romantic with.”

He was still holding Eddie’s wrist, and Eddie was grateful for the thick sleeve of his turnout jacket so Buck’s fingertips couldn’t find his pulse, which he was certain had spiked at those words.

He had never thought about Buck the romantic, never let himself think about it. In all the time he’d known Buck he’d never really seen him with a girlfriend. His relationship with Ali was short and slotted around work. Abby had taken off by the time Eddie joined the 118, and aside from an ill-advised dalliance with Taylor Kelly, Buck hadn’t been involved with anyone else in the time Eddie knew him.

It occurred to Eddie that he didn’t know how he’d feel the day Buck met someone else and moved on with his life. He was so used to having him at his disposal, always free and willing to hang out with Eddie and Christopher, and a part of him somehow assumed that he always would be there. The thought of going back to just him and Christopher every night made their small, cosy house suddenly seem very empty without Buck’s warmth and energy to fill it.

They came to a stop next to Hen and Athena, who shot them confused looks. Buck nodded his head at Amina and Victor, engaged in conversation.

“What are you up to, Buck?” Athena asked suspiciously.

“I’m not doing anything. This one’s all on Eddie. I just wanna hear it play out.”

They were just in time.

“Amina, I would like you to come over to my house for the holidays.”

“You want me to spend Christmas Day with you, Victor?”

“Very much. I’d like to spend every day with you. I think you’re a really special lady, and I’ve been trying to think of the words to tell you that nearly every day since I first met you.”

Amina dropped her head, and Buck gripped Eddie’s arm as they waited for her answer. When she looked back up at her neighbour, Amina wore a shy smile.

“I would like that, Victor.”

Victor’s face lit up with delight, and he took her hands gently in his.

“Umm, sorry to interrupt, but we have a holiday tradition,” Buck cut in, leaning forward to gesture up to the mistletoe. Amina and Victor looked up and started, both visibly embarrassed. They looked at each other.

“Well if it’s an American tradition...” Amina said, smiling.

As they leaned in for a chaste kiss under the mistletoe, Buck bumped Eddie’s shoulder, beaming.

“That was a risk,” Eddie murmured to him.

“I had faith.” Buck sighed happily. “I love a happy ending.”

“You softie,” Hen teased, but she was smiling too.

With the fire out and Amina and Victor happily sat together talking on the sidewalk, the 118 prepared to leave.

“That was pretty profound advice for someone who claims not to be in touch with his emotions,” Buck said, stripping off his gloves and leaning against the side of the truck. “Where did that come from?”

Eddie shrugged.

“Just picked it up along the way.”

Eddie wasn’t keen to activate Buck’s protective little brother mode by telling him that this was relationship advice he’d given Chimney about Maddie, but he knew that if Buck pushed him he wouldn’t be able to think of a convincing lie. Luckily, before Buck could question him further, Eddie saw a woman approaching behind him, eyes locked on the mistletoe dangling above his best friend.

“Incoming!”

Buck glanced back over his shoulder, and for half a second Eddie wondered if he would stop and allow her to kiss him. It was the gamble of making this deal. Eddie knew he could keep to his side of the bargain, but he wasn’t sure if the temptation would lead to the return of Buck 1.0.

He needn’t have worried. Buck shot a panicked look at Eddie and leapt straight out from under the mistletoe to the open door of the truck. Eddie had to hold back a laugh, as he shrugged apologetically at the woman and climbed the steps after him with relief.

*

The Holly Jolly Christmas Tree Farm was quite a way out of town, but Buck insisted that the trees would be worth it. And there were certainly enough of them. The place was built like a maze of pines and firs. Sweetly-scented trees in every shade of green towered around them, and Christmas songs played on the sound system while children raced around screaming, excitement levels off the charts.

“When selecting the ideal Christmas tree, there are three things we need to consider.”

“It’s just a tree, Buck.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘just’ a Christmas tree, Eddie.”

Buck turned to Christopher.

“Now, Chris, we’re looking for shape and colour, scent and needle retention. So you need to like how it looks and how it smells. Take a really deep breath in,” Buck demonstrated. “But don’t get too close. You don’t want Christmas tree needles up your nose.”

Chris giggled and sniffed the tree closest to them obediently. Buck waited for his verdict, and when he shook his head they moved on to the next one.

“What was the third thing again?” Chris asked.

“Good needle retention. That means it can’t drop lots of needles on the floor, because you know how grumpy your dad gets when he stands on them barefoot.”

“How do you _remember_ that?” Eddie asked.

“You told me about it in detail that day at work. For about an hour. And showed me the ‘scars’ it left on your foot.”

“Hey, people underestimate the dangers of Christmas. You should know that of all people. How many people do we go to who’ve injured themselves hanging up Christmas decorations? Remember that woman who had to go to the emergency room because she fell off a ladder and bruised somewhere she really didn’t want to bruise when she landed on a wooden Santa?”

“Nope, doesn’t ring any bells. What did she bruise?” Buck asked innocently.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, because you were the one making jokes about Santa having to go down chimneys, not up them.”

Buck shot him an impish grin.

“You’re right. I know exactly what you’re talking about, but I’m really enjoying you trying to describe it for a PG-13 audience.” He inclined his head towards Christopher, luckily too engrossed in smelling Christmas trees, and Eddie’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re in so much trouble, Buckley.”

“I’m quaking in my boots, Diaz.” Buck flashed him a teasing smile that made Eddie’s stomach flip, and moved to read the sign below another tree. “How about this one, Chris? The Douglas Fir. Good colour, good shape, smells Christmassy...oh, wait, maybe not.”

“Why not?” Eddie asked, still plotting revenge.

“It says it will drop needles without regular watering.” Buck exchanged a meaningful look with Christopher. “We both know what your dad’s like with plants. We need something that’s practically indestructible.”

“I’m trying so hard not to be offended by that,” Eddie said dryly.

“But it’s true, Dad!” Chris piped up. “You told me you’ve killed every plant you every owned.”

“OK, what happened to father-son loyalty?

“Please, Chris knows to side with his best friend over his boring old dad.”

“Boring _and_ old?”

Eddie shook his head and crouched to scoop up a handful of fake snow scattered artfully around the trees. He flung a fistful at Buck, who burst out laughing and ducked around the back of the nearest tree, searching for his own snow. They traded fake snowballs while Chris watched, and Eddie allowed himself to feel a moment of untamed joy as he stalked Buck around the tree. He was also winning their snowball fight, which helped.

As Buck searched for him, a fistful of powdery fake snow held aloft, Eddie rushed him in a half-tackle. The snow flew out of Buck’s hand and up into the air, coming down over both of them in a flurry of powder. Laughing, they lost their balance and tumbled back against the tree. The scent of Christmas surrounded them, branches softly scratching at their faces as the sound of Chris’s delighted giggling mingled with the Christmas pop music blasting out of the speakers.

Buck was still laughing, which was lucky because it meant he wasn’t looking at the strange expression on Eddie’s face at being so close to him. His breath carried the scent of peppermint from the candy cane he’d sucked on the way in ( _that_ had been a distracting enough sight in itself), and suddenly the only thought in Eddie’s head was wondering whether Buck’s lips tasted like peppermint too.

Buck’s face was still coated in a light dusting of fake snow, and before he could stop himself Eddie reached out and brushed some of it off his cheek, his thumb skimming along Buck’s jawline. His best friend stilled instantly, and the smile slowly faded from his face as their eyes locked. Those eyes. _God damn_. No one should have eyes that colour, with all the depth and complexity of the ocean. Eyes that could drown you right there on the spot.

Drawing on every ounce of self-control he possessed, Eddie stepped back to a safe distance, dragging Buck out of the tree with him and hurriedly letting him go.

“I guess we’d better get this one, seeing as we’ve nearly crushed it,” he said, uncomfortably aware of the gravelly, uneven catch in his voice. Buck looked down at the sign next to the tree, not seeming to notice.

“‘ _The Balsam Fir. Native to the USA and Canada, renow_ _n_ _ed for its spicy Christmas scent, conical shape and dark green colour. Excellent needle retention.’_ ” He grinned over at Christopher. “Sounds promising. But there’s one final, important test to go. What do you think, Chris?”

Christopher shuffled forward into the space next to the tree and inhaled deeply.

“It smells like Christmas,” he said, smiling and nodding.

“Sold!” Buck cried, scooping Chris up onto his hip. “Now let’s get this packaged up, and we can say hello to those reindeer on the way out. Did your dad tell you all about the reindeer we saw at work today?”

As Buck and Chris headed for the exit, a tree attendant materialised by Eddie’s side as if his thoughts had summoned them. Their name tag read ‘Jordan’.

“Have you made your choice?”

“Uh, yeah, this one, please.”

“It’s nice to see adults still get as excited as the kids at Christmas,” Jordan said, smiling as Eddie’s gaze trailed after Buck and Christopher.

“Not many people get as excited about it as Buck,” Eddie said, lifting the tree up to carry it to the truck.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying,” Jordan said, “but I’ve been watching the three of you and you’ve made my night. You have an adorable husband and son.”

Eddie’s hold on the Christmas tree slipped. It hit the ground with a thud, and his stomach swooped like he’d missed a step going down the stairs. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks that it was too dark for his blush to be noticeable, and that Buck and Chris were both out of earshot. He hadn’t even realised that they were being observed, let alone how they might look to an outside audience.

Eddie opened his mouth to tell Jordan that they’d got it all wrong, that Christopher was his son but Buck was just a friend. The words died in his throat.

Buck was more than just a friend. And he was kidding himself if he pretended any different. But if he tried to define their relationship? Words failed him altogether. Closer than colleagues. More than friends. Definitely not brotherly. Chimney was like a brother to him, and his stomach didn’t give that rollercoaster lurch whenever _they_ looked at each other. Buck was so much more to him than labels could describe...and no word seemed to fit the feelings Eddie had been grappling for over a year now.

But this stranger didn’t know that. Under the twinkling lights of the Christmas trees, with fake snow drifting through the air, and the two most important people in his world strolling just ahead of them, Eddie could be raw and honest. They wouldn’t ask him for answers. They wouldn’t judge his choices. They had seen him with his son and his best friend and assumed that they were a family, like it was the most natural thing in the world. They had gifted Eddie something that he’d never been brave enough to acknowledge, even to himself. So he took a breath and surrendered to the clamouring in his heart, just for a moment.

“Thank you,” he replied, smiling at Jordan. And he hoisted the tree back onto his shoulder and followed Christopher and Buck.


	2. Fire and Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an unwelcome visitor returns, the Secret Santa sweaters are not so secret, and the 118 hit the ice...

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“It’s the mistletoe! And the handcuffs...”

*

“Umm, be advised, Ladder 118, this might be an unusual one,” Maddie said over the radio, holding in her laughter. “Get those poker faces ready.”

Their first clue came when the door opened to reveal a pretty girl in a very short Santa dress. Her face was the exact shade of red as her dress, but Hen guessed that she’d avoided covering herself up out of concern for her boyfriend. Moments later, they realised why she hadn’t bothered. There was no dignified way of getting out of this one.

The girlfriend’s outfit should have been the first clue. As she led Hen and Chimney into the bedroom, they were met with the sight of a man strapped to the bed with furry handcuffs in candy cane colours, wearing only an elf hat and ears, and a pair of shoes with pointy toes and bells on the end. Mistletoe covered what little was left of his dignity.

Hen heard Buck choke behind her.

“Umm...”

Even Bobby was floored, which almost never happened

“Is this really necessary?” the boyfriend asked, eyes wide with horror at five new people arriving to witness his humiliation.

“I believe you’ve lost your handcuff keys?” Eddie asked, maintaining a remarkable poker face, and gestured to himself and Buck. “We can help.”

Buck and Eddie freed his arms with bolt cutters, while Hen and Chim caught each other’s eyes in a silent battle to decide who would draw the short straw. Chim shook his head fractionally from side to side, eyes pleading with Hen to take on the examination for him. She could see by how red his face was going that he was struggling to hold in his laughter so, with a sigh, Hen nodded in resignation. Shooting her a grateful look, Chim began assessing the patient’s vitals, and Hen schooled her face into a neutral pose as she leant forward to examine the affected appendage. She’d had plenty of practice at keeping her voice calm and even over the years, but this was testing her professionalism to its very limit.

“Some people have an allergic reaction to mistletoe,” she explained matter-of-factly to the room, knowing that only Buck’s love of trivia and Chim’s medical knowledge would stand a chance of knowing this festive fact.

“It’s swelling up!” the girlfriend shrieked, hovering anxiously over Hen’s shoulder.

“I thought that was kinda the idea,” Buck spluttered, and Eddie elbowed him in the ribs, fighting a losing battle to keep his face straight. Bobby shot them both a warning glare. Hen refused to meet Chimney’s eyes, knowing it would be the final thing that tipped her over the edge.

“Will it go down again?” the boyfriend asked, rubbing his liberated wrists anxiously.

And that was it. Buck did an admirable job of trying to turn his laughing into a coughing fit, turning his head into Eddie’s shoulder, but no one was fooled.

“Excuse us,” Bobby said. “Buck, Eddie, _out_.”

Buck was practically doubled over by this point, so Eddie grabbed his arm and steered him from the room. Bobby followed, and Hen took a deep breath and carried on with her diagnosis.

“It’s a bit like a poison ivy reaction, we’ll give you some anti-inflammatories and you should be fine. If you experience any burning or additional swelling in the next few days, I would go and get it checked out with your doctor.”

Leaving the relieved couple to their blushes, Hen and Chim left the address, still avoiding each other’s eyes. Bobby was waiting next to the fire truck, and waved them over when he caught sight of them.

“Debrief, in here, now” he said, climbing up into the cab. Bobby had always been very good at keeping a straight face, so they couldn’t tell if he was mad or not.

Hen and Chim took seats in the truck opposite Buck and Eddie, who were very carefully not looking at each other. Buck was almost leaning against Eddie for support, his face red from laughing so much, and a smile curved Eddie’s lips up at the edges as he nudged him with his elbow again.

“How is the patient?” Bobby asked.

“Well he may die from embarrassment, but the mistletoe won’t kill him,” Hen said. She chanced a half-glance at Chim. “I don’t suppose you took that into account when you went hanging it from our truck?”

“How many people are _actually_ allergic to mistletoe? We must have found the only person in California who is, and who was dumb enough to tie it to his...candy cane.”

Buck snorted again, still verging on hysterical.

“Your behaviour in there was extremely unprofessional,” Bobby told him.

“I’m sorry, Cap, but...you saw him, right?”

“I did.”

“And you don’t find that just a little bit funny?”

“Whether it’s funny or not doesn’t matter. We are the emergency services, and we are there to reassure people, not laugh at their medical ailments.”

“Come on, Cap, it was three times the size it should be!”

“Yeah, I mean who needs viagra when you have an allergic reaction?” Eddie commented.

“I doubt you’d ever need either,” Buck said, without thinking, and flushed bright red as the rest of the truck sniggered and Eddie gave him a peculiar look.

“And that’s why you should only ever hang mistletoe from door frames, not body parts...” Hen said, her eyes finally meeting Chim’s. And they cracked up right there. Buck lost it too, tipping Eddie over the edge with him. Bobby valiantly tried to maintain a veneer of professionalism, but it was a lost cause, and the whole truck dissolved into hysterical laughter.

*

They were still debriefing the call when they returned to the fire house.

“Handcuffs are always a bad idea,” Bobby said wisely as they climbed down from the truck. The rest of the crew gawped at him.

“And I only just stopped laughing,” Buck said weakly, clutching his ribs.

“Yeah, that was way more information than I ever needed,” Chim muttered.

“At least Athena didn’t need my help getting out of the cuffs _that_ time,” Hen said to him in a low voice.

“I’m sorry?”

Clearly not low enough. Bobby was watching her with raised eyebrows and an amused expression.

“Uh, never mind Cap, another time and place...” Hen said hurriedly. She backed into Chim in her hurry to get away from their captain’s scrutiny, and he bumped into the side of the truck, directing Eddie’s attention upwards.

“Ahem.”

Eddie nodded above Hen and Chimney’s heads, to where a sinister piece of mistletoe hung, gloating. Buck and Eddie smirked at each other. Chimney had been caught out by his own stupid dare. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem thrown by this development.

“What can I say?” he said with a shrug. “Merry Christmas, Hen!”

“Merry Christmas, Chim.”

They leant in and shared a quick, chaste kiss on the lips.

“And that’s how it’s done!” Chimney shouted, holding up his hand for a high-five, and Hen slapped her palm against his with a grin. “So, what do you reckon, Hen?”

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, Chim, I think I’ll stick with my wife.”

“Probably for the best. Maddie already thinks I’m going to try and call the baby Henrietta, not sure how she’d take us eloping together at Christmas...” He trailed off as the others stared at him. “What? I was joking. Of course we’re not going to run off together...”

“I don’t think that’s what they were reacting to, Chim,” Bobby smiled.

“You’re having a girl?” Hen shrieked.

“Congratulations, man!” Eddie cheered.

Chim facepalmed and turned to Buck.

“You didn’t tell anyone?” he asked accusingly.

“Buck knew?” Hen shot Chimney a death stare. “ _He_ knew and not me?”

“Really helping those rumours of an elopement there, Hen.”

“Oh please, even if I did like men you couldn’t keep up with me. I would eat you for breakfast.”

Eddie and Buck exchanged a look, eyebrows raised.

“I couldn’t tell you,” Chim said. “Maddie swore me to secrecy.”

“Which worked out well for you,” Hen retorted, folding her arms across her chest.

“But he might call her Henrietta,” Buck said, trying to pacify her.

“Of course they won’t, who’s crazy enough to name their child Henrietta?”

Chim turned back to Buck.

“ _I_ can’t believe Maddie told _you_.”

“Of course she did, I’m her brother. And unlike you, father to my future niece, I can keep a secret. Maddie’s gonna be so mad at you!”

Laughing, Buck swept Chimney into a bone-crushing hug. He tolerated it for about two seconds and squirmed away.

“Yeah yeah, get those ridiculously toned arms away from me, Buckley.”

*

One of Buck’s favourite things about Christmas in the 118 was the annual toy drive. As the fire house donned their Santa hats and opened the doors to the public, donations flooded in from every corner of the city, ready to go out to children’s hospitals, youth centres and foster homes on Christmas Eve. Another shift would be delivering them this year, but Buck liked to soak in the excitement of gathering all these gifts, knowing that they might make a child’s year that much brighter.

Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see his sister approaching, fully embodying the concept of that maternal pregnant glow. From the corner of his eye, Buck saw Chim staring at her adoringly, like he couldn’t believe she was real.

“Maddie!” Hen called, and smirked at Chim. “Here to pick up something for your baby _girl_?”

Maddie narrowed her eyes at her boyfriend.

“They tricked me.”

Maddie shook her head, smiling.

“Good job it wasn’t a big secret. How did you manage to keep the pregnancy a secret for twelve weeks?”

“Hey, I will have everyone know that I am an _excellent_ secret keeper,” Chim protested. “Ask Hen – I haven’t told _any_ of her secrets.”

Hen folded her arms at him.

“Maybe you should just stop talking altogether,” she suggested.

“Ooh, I have an idea for that!” Maddie said and, grabbing Chimney’s arm, dragged him with her to their fire truck for a kiss under the mistletoe.

“Gross! Keep it PG-13!” Buck shouted after them.

“Bit late for that,” Hen commented. “They’re having the baby already.”

Buck laughed and reached over the table to accept a chess set from a donor. As he stepped back to put it in a bucket, he nearly bumped into Eddie crossing behind him.

“Careful,” Eddie said, touching his hand lightly to Buck’s lower back as he scooted past with a stack of puzzles. Buck forced himself not to react, even as he fought the urge to lean back into the touch. To avoid the heat of Hen’s knowing gaze, he slipped out from behind the table and intercepted his sister on the way back from the truck with Chimney.

“Well that made the Fire Truck of Love completely worth it,” Chim reported.

“Again, gross,” Buck said, scrunching his nose up. “I’m going to steal my sister away from your bad influence.”

“You’re one to talk about bad influences,” Chim retorted, but he left them to it and headed back to Hen and Eddie, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet as he walked.

“I’ve never seen him so happy,” Buck said, smiling down at his sister. “You’re a good influence on him.”

“It’s mutual,” Maddie smiled fondly after Chimney. “Who’d have thought when I came out here to see you that we’d end up here?”

“I know. I can’t believe you’re gonna have a _kid_ soon, Mads.”

“I can. Walking gets harder every day, I need to pee constantly and none of my clothes fit anymore. What _I_ can’t believe is that I still have two months to go.”

“Yeah, about that...when you get your Secret Santa Christmas sweater, be nice about it.”

  
“Why? Are you buying it?”

“No, it’s not me. Just...go easy on them, OK?”

Maddie sighed.

“Alright, what has Eddie bought me...?”

Buck’s eyes widened.

“How did you know –?”

“You’re not subtle. What is it?”

“I don’t know. I could just tell he’s got you, and he looked a bit panicked when Chim said...”

Buck stopped abruptly, aware that he’d said too much, and Maddie’s eyebrows rose dangerously high.

“When Chim said _what_?”

“Just that you were having a difficult time with clothes right now. Which you told me yourself, just now!”

Maddie scowled at him, but luckily for Buck a member of the public arrived to drop off a teddy bear and he was saved from the wrath of her hormones.

“I’m so excited for you, Mads. I can’t wait to have a kid some day.”

“And when will that day be, Evan?”

The smile faded from Buck’s face.

“Let’s not go over this again.”

“I’m just worried about you, Buck. You’ve been alone for so long now, and you’re still young. Don’t you think it’s time you got back out there? You know, got back in the game, or whatever sports analogy makes sense to you?”

Buck accepted a Lego set donation with a smile and thanks, then shook his head at his sister.

“Look, just because you’re paired up and knocked up, doesn’t mean everyone else has to do the same. Maybe I like things as they are right now.”

His sister looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and concern.

“You’ve been single for over a year now. Don’t you want to meet a nice girl and start a family of your own?”

“‘ _Meet a nice girl’_...you sound like Mom and Dad. Maybe I don’t _want_ to find a nice girl...or any girl.”

Surprise flashed across Maddie’s face.

“You haven’t dated any guys while I’ve been in LA,” she said carefully.

“I haven’t dated any guys since I was in South America. My point is, I don’t have to find a woman to settle down with. It could be a guy.”

“Do the others know that?”

“I never told them.”

“Well I’m sure they guessed,” Maddie said, without thinking.

Buck narrowed his eyes and frowned at her. It was a movement she hadn’t seen him make before, and Maddie had to bite her lip when she realised that he’d picked it up from Eddie.

“What does that mean?” Buck asked, and Maddie swore internally and scrambled to cover herself.

“Well, you’ve always been very open when it comes to love, and who you love.”

“Not to them,” Buck said, nodding in the general direction of the 118. “They all think I’m some sort of player...I’m sure Chim told you about Buck 1.0.”

“Yeah, he mentioned it.”

“They were all girls. Why would anyone think I was into guys unless someone told them?”

The accusation in his eyes struck a nerve, and Maddie snapped back.

“I didn’t tell them anything! Perhaps they guessed because it’s blindingly obvious that you’re in love with your best friend!”

Buck’s face went white, then bright red, and his head snapped from side to side, checking that no one had overheard them.

“What did you say?”

Maddie stood her ground, staring him down. Clearly tiptoeing around this wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

“You heard me. Are you gonna tell me it’s not true?”

Buck clenched his jaw and looked away from her.

“Can we have this conversation literally anywhere else, at any other time?”

“ _Buck_...”

“ _Yes_. OK, Maddie? Yes.”

And Buck turned on his heel and marched off in the direction of the kitchen. Eddie glanced up as he left, concern in his eyes. Chim followed his gaze, then looked over at Maddie. She shook her head urgently and set off after Buck, hoping her boyfriend would get her telepathic message to keep Eddie distracted and not let anyone else follow them up to the loft.

It took Maddie longer than her brother to climb the stairs normally, let alone at seven months’ pregnant, but she didn’t let that stop her cornering him in the corner of the kitchen, where he was knocking back a bottle of water and trying to regain his composure.

“OK, first of all, when you storm off from a pregnant woman, it’s not fair that you storm off up a flight of stairs.”

Buck sighed and turned to face her with a resigned expression.

“Noted,” he said wearily.

“Secondly, did you just tell me what I think you did?” She stared at him intently and took a step closer, dropping her voice to a whisper. “ _You’re in love with Eddie?_ ”

Buck looked away from her, playing with the label on his bottle of water. He bit his lip, let out a shaky breath, and looked up to meet her gaze.

“Yes. I am.”

He tilted his head back to the ceiling and closed his eyes.

“I’ve never said that out loud before.”

Buck let out a long breath before he spoke again.

“But it doesn’t matter. He’ll never feel the same way, and I’m OK with that. He’s my best friend. I can live with it never being more than that, as long as I still have him and Christopher in my life.”

“What, and deny yourself any chance of happiness?”

“It’s my life, Maddie.”

Maddie folded her arms across her chest, resting them on top of her bump.

“How do you know Eddie doesn’t feel the same way you do?”

“Because he’s straight. He was married to a woman. He was into Christopher’s teacher for a while earlier this year. He’s not gonna turn for me, is he?”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, Maddie. I do.”

Maddie stalked across the kitchen to him so she could lower her voice and not risk anyone else overhearing their discussion.

“You’re telling me that, in the whole time you’ve known each other, nothing has _ever_ happened between you and Eddie?” Maddie shook her head. “I don’t buy that. When you came back to work after rehab on your leg, Eddie was the first one up to hug you at Athena’s party. He’s the one who got your spare key and drove you to and from rehab. He’s the one who got through to you and got you out of the apartment when you were moping about not being a firefighter anymore. Chim told me the way Eddie looked at you when he found you and Christopher after the tsunami. How you’re never out of his sight during a shift.”

Buck shook his head dismissively.

“That doesn’t mean anything –”

“But I see it too,” Maddie said urgently, closing the distance between them so she could lay a hand on Buck’s arm. “The way you spend literally every day together. The way you sit so close together all the time, even when you don’t have to. The way you’re always finding excuses to touch each other. He wouldn’t do all that if he didn’t want to. Eddie’s a private guy. He’s not like that with anyone else.”

Buck shook his head again, but she didn’t miss the wistful spark of hope in his eyes.

“It’s just how we are...”

He trailed off, remembering something.

“The other night...when we took Chris to get a Christmas tree. We were having this snowball fight with fake snow, and we kinda fell against the tree, and...”

“ _And?_ ” Maddie said eagerly.

“There was...a moment. At least it felt like it then. Maybe I imagined it.”

Buck downplayed it, because the moment suddenly seemed too intimate to share with anyone else, but he knew he hadn’t imagined it. He had replayed that moment so many times in his head that it was now impossible to forget. The sudden closeness of Eddie’s face, his chest pressed against Buck’s, the laughter in his eyes. The scent of Eddie and the tree filling Buck’s lungs. The way he brushed fake snow off Buck’s jaw so gently, but it may as well have been with fire for the way Buck’s skin burned afterwards. The moment where both their smiles faded, and Buck’s whole body tingled with an anticipation that made his blood pound. The way Eddie’s voice caught, just a little, after he hauled Buck out of the tree and stepped away from him. The longing that was almost a physical ache in Buck’s chest as he put on a show of normality, talking to Chris, scooping him up onto his hip and walking on ahead with him to hide how much that moment had affected him.

Maddie shrugged.

“Well, if you really think it’s never gonna happen, then maybe you should move on. Find someone else and enjoy your friendship with Eddie as just that.”

Even saying it felt wrong to Maddie. But she hoped that maybe Buck would rebel against the idea, and follow his heart instead of giving into his fears. But before he could respond, a commotion downstairs drew their attention, and they crossed the loft to lean over the railings and see for themselves. Buck groaned.

A camera crew had turned up. Leading the charge was Taylor Kelly.

*

“Hen was right. Apparently S.W.A.T. weren’t the only ones filming our reindeer rescue the other day,” Bobby said. “It got passed onto News Channel 8, Taylor Kelly recognised us, and as she’d already been sent some footage of Amina and Victor under the mistletoe next to our fire truck...this was inevitable.”

“So is the end of the world,” Buck muttered. “Doesn’t mean it has to happen today.”

“Look, I don’t like this anymore than you do, but we don’t have a choice. She went straight to the Chief, who didn’t know about our little _stunt_ ,” Bobby shot a look at Chim, “so we have to cooperate.”

“Thanks, Chim.”

“Hey, we’ve made people happy with that truck! Name me one person who’s unhappy right now because of the Fire Truck of Love!”

“I can give you four,” Hen retorted, gesturing at their crew, and Chim pulled a face at her.

“Look, it’s good publicity for the station, right?”

“It’s publicity,” Bobby corrected. “Good or bad, I’m not sure yet.”

“This is LA. All publicity is good publicity, isn’t it?”

*

The next few days were an endurance test for the 118. Bobby and Hen laid the groundwork early on that none of them were to be left alone with Taylor Kelly at any time, and they stuck to this rule religiously. Taylor followed them to a Santa Fun Run, where several Santas passed out in the heat, Eddie narrowly avoided being trapped with Taylor under the mistletoe, and she settled for bagging herself a Santa to kiss under the mistletoe instead. And finally she followed them to a Christmas-themed bachelorette party, complete with pole dancing lessons around a candy cane striped pole in a bar downtown, where one of the guests had landed on her head after some drunken acrobatics gone wrong.

As Chimney and Eddie helped the patient onto the ambulance and Hen climbed in front to drive, Buck swooped into their line of vision, grabbed Eddie’s sleeve and tugged him along the side of the truck.

“You need to come with me right now,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder at the door to the bar.

“‘Come with me if you want to live’?” Chim quipped, and Buck looked at him blankly. “Terminator?” Chim prompted.

“I’ve never seen it.”

“You’re as bad as Maddie.”

“We’ll add it to the list, Buck,” Eddie said, and glanced sideways at Chimney. “We have a running list of movies to watch that Buck’s never seen.”

“Maddie and I have something similar.”

“Yeah, what’s _with_ that?”

“Pennsylvania, man.”

“Can we focus?” Buck interrupted, gesturing behind them as the some of the guests from the bachelorette party emerged into the daylight. “Taylor told them about the truck and now they’re heading our way. Do you both want to get caught under the mistletoe with six wasted girls?”

“Ah, the Chimney of three years ago would be so disappointed in me for turning _that_ down,” Chim said, sighing with mock wistfulness.

“The Chimney of three years ago wasn’t having a baby with my sister.”

“Fair point.”

And Chim bolted for the safety of the ambulance as Buck and Eddie jumped up into the truck cab, leaving behind some very disappointed women.

*

Finally, after three days Taylor and her cameraman seemed happy with the amount they had shot, and finished with a piece to camera on the Fire Truck of Love itself. Having spoken to Chimney about his idea when they started filming, Taylor was now keen to speak to them about any couples they had managed to set up. As Bobby commented on Amina and Victor, the couple from the apartment fire, Buck listened, sticking close as per their rule. And then Taylor cast fear and dread into his heart with one simple sentence.

“Let’s see if we can find a firefighter to get into the festive spirit with!”

Wise enough not to attempt to kiss Bobby, Taylor cast her eyes around for a willing candidate, and Buck knew with horrible certainty that she was looking for him. He shot a panicked look at Hen and Chim, both of whom were in his eyeline, but neither of whom were close enough to help. Bobby was frozen in place, unable to intervene on camera. Buck started backing slowly away, silently praying for an alarm call, an earthquake, a sinkhole...anything that might rescue him from public humiliation on camera. And then a hand appeared in his line of vision, grabbed hold of his t-shirt and dragged him away. As Buck turned to follow, tripping over his own feet in his haste, his eyes met Eddie’s. His best friend and, in this moment, his saviour, had a finger to his lips, eyes imploring him to remain silent.

Buck’s mouth dried up as he followed him unquestioningly. They stumbled to a stop around the side of the truck, Eddie’s hand still fisted in the material of Buck’s LAFD t-shirt. Neither said a word, huddled so close together that Buck could pick out all the different shades of brown in Eddie’s eyes. He didn’t know there could be that many shades of brown, more than he could ever put a name to.

Buck’s eyes flickered automatically down to Eddie’s lips, then back up to his eyes. As his brain registered his body’s unconscious action and cursed its treachery, he felt his face and neck flush, and wished for that sinkhole again. But then his heart stuttered and all embarrassment was driven from his mind. Because Eddie’s eyes had just mirrored Buck’s. His gaze darted down to Buck’s lips, and then back up to his eyes.

Buck’s stomach swooped, and he felt his breathing hitch in his chest, suddenly erratic. He licked his dry lips, hardly aware he was doing it, and Eddie’s eyes followed the movement, sending butterflies scattering through Buck’s stomach. That feeling from the Christmas tree farm had returned, a tingling, magnetic pull that Buck couldn’t explain. His brain short circuited under the gaze of those hypnotic brown eyes, and the warmth of his breath ghosting across Buck’s cheek, and the urge to close the narrow gap between them and press his lips to Eddie’s was nothing short of overwhelming.

Dazed, Buck registered that Eddie still hadn’t let go of him, still hadn’t looked away, and hope and courage surged in his chest. Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Buck tilted his head forward a fraction of an inch...and Eddie tilted his head slowly towards Buck’s in response.

“Ahem.”

Buck and Eddie leapt apart, both flushing red, as Chim and Hen rounded the side of the truck. Chim had spoken, and the look on his face told them that he was not about to let them forget what he had just witnessed. But Hen was distracted, glancing behind her.

“Incoming!” she hissed.

“Oh, there you are.”

Taylor Kelly’s unwelcome voice broke the moment, and they all looked round at her reluctantly.

“I think we’re about done here for now. You give us a call if you get any more festive calls that you think our viewers would like to see.”

She eyed Buck with a shark-like smile and took a few steps closer, all her attention now on him.

“You let me know if you’re free for a drink over the holidays. We had fun the last time we caught up in a bar, remember?”

Buck backed up instinctively, but Taylor followed until his back hit the truck.

“Oops,” she said, an innocent expression plastered unconvincingly across her face, and Buck darted a look up. _S_ _hit_. Taylor had backed him up under the mistletoe. He hadn’t seen that one coming. Neither did anyone else, if their expressions were anything to go by. Hen looked about ready to throw down with Taylor there and then, and Eddie...Buck’s eyes widened. Eddie had a face like thunder.

But before he could even read into that, Taylor had closed the gap between them and placed a hand on his chest, almost exactly where Eddie’s hand had been only moments before. Rather than want to lean into her touch like he had with Eddie, Buck tensed, wanting nothing more than to shove her hand away. Taylor’s eyes narrowed, and Buck realised that she wasn’t about to take no for an answer. She was going to force him to kiss her in front of his friends, and there was nothing he wanted less. He wondered how he’d ever found her attractive.

“I’m allergic,” Buck blurted out, on a moment of divine inspiration. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to the Christmas elf with the unfortunate allergy that they rescued the day before for giving him a plausible out.

“You haven’t touched it–” Chim started, until Hen interrupted him with a swift kick to the shin. Buck could have kissed _her_ right there and then.

“We treated a mistletoe allergy the other day. Buck shouldn’t even be standing that close to it, really. He’s extremely allergic.”

Taylor frowned like she wasn’t sure she believed any of them, but realised when she was beat and shrugged.

“Oh well, some other time.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Eddie said shortly, surprising them all. Taylor’s eyebrows rose, just slightly, at his tone. For a moment, Buck wondered if she was going to challenge Eddie’s uncharacteristic outburst. But then she seemed to think better of it and walked away, wiggling her fingers in a wave over her shoulder. Buck sagged against the truck in relief.

“Thanks, guys. What happened to the rules of the dare though?”

“Screw the rules,” Eddie muttered fiercely.

“Yeah, you get a free pass with her, Buck. That witch isn’t coming anywhere near you again,” Hen said. “ _I’ll_ kiss you before that happens.”

“Well, now you say that,” Buck said, gratitude flowing through him. “I owe you.”

He leaned forward and pecked Hen briefly on the lips. Her eyes widened in shock, but she took it without punching him in the face, which he considered a win.

“Thanks for saving me from Taylor Kelly, Hen.”

Hen patted Buck on the arm.

“That’s sweet, but next time you can just buy me a coffee. Karen’s going to think you’re all on some sort of mission to convert me at this rate.”

*

“The moment is here! Santa has visited me and dropped off all your Christmas sweaters.”

Buck called, as he bounded into the loft with a burlap sack the following evening. Karen, Maddie and Athena had joined the 118 at the fire house to open their presents before they ventured onto the ice for an evening’s skating at Pershing Square. Christopher, Harry and Denny explored the loft – “Not too far, Christopher!” – while Maddie balanced Nia on her lap – “Good practice for you!” – and Bobby handed out mugs of hot chocolate – “For energy before we spend a night on the ice.”

“Now you remember the rules you all agreed to when you signed up to Secret Santa,” Buck reminded them as he rummaged in the sack. “You have to wear the sweater you have been given for the whole night. Really you should wear it all the way through the holidays. I need to see photographic proof of this from Christmas Day.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t have Taylor Kelly and her camera crew stick around for this,” Athena commented dryly, as she took the parcel Buck handed to her. “You were a big fan of hers once upon a time.”

Buck grimaced.

“Let’s just say she’s not my type now,” he said quietly, not meeting anyone’s eye. Eddie frowned at Athena, annoyed at her for shaming Buck’s past choices. She didn’t notice, but Hen saw his expression darken and sought to change the subject.

“Well I am excited to see what y’all came up with. And no pressure, but whoever got mine, you know I love a good sweater, it better not let the side down.”

“We’ll be lucky if it doesn’t rip on those chandeliers hanging off your ears,” Chim quipped. Hen had gone all out with her holiday earrings, and wore an pair of sparkly Christmas trees complete with swinging crystal baubles and a gold star tree topper.

“Are you bad mouthing my bling?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Dr Wilson.”

“OK, I think everyone’s got their parcels,” Buck said, doing a quick count. “You can open your Secret Santas!”

The sound of ripping paper filled the loft.

“Oh my god, this amazing,” Chimney said, as he pulled out a green sweater with the words _‘Now I have a machine gun – Ho Ho Ho’_ across the front. Machine guns, snowflakes and Nakatomi Plaza covered the rest. Chim turned to Maddie.

“This was you, wasn’t it? Only you would have got me a _Die Hard_ Christmas sweater!”

“Busted,” Maddie beamed as Chim leaned in to kiss her. Across from them, Hen whooped as she unwrapped hers.

“This is legendary,” she grinned. The red sweater had the words _‘Sleigh Bells Bling’_ across the front in tinsel letters, and was scattered with tiny bells. Hen pulled it straight over her head, and Bobby smiled to himself.

Beside Hen, Karen had unwrapped a navy sweater with the words _‘Mama Elf’_ in curling gold script across the chest. She looked knowingly at Athena, who was eyeballing her right back, having just unwrapped a red sweater with a gingerbread man on the front, surrounded by snowflakes. His left arm and right leg had been slightly chewed, and the words _‘Bite Me’_ arced over his head.

“What? I thought it suited you so well!” Karen laughed.

“I see we’re all doing a good job at keeping this Secret Santa secret,” Bobby smiled, as he unwrapped his parcel to reveal a Minnesota Vikings sweater in hideous yellow and purple fairisle, with a huge Viking head across the chest.

“Merry Christmas, my Viking friend,” Chimney smirked.

“Open yours, Buck,” Maddie prompted, and Buck returned to his parcel. He’d always enjoyed watching other people opening their presents more than opening his own, so it had been easy to forget that he had a present too.

As the paper fell away, Buck laughed as he shook out a red sweater. Across the chest in white were the words, _‘Dear Santa...Define Good...”_ topped with a Santa hat. Buck grinned and looked up, scanning the room to try and work out who was responsible.

“Very appropriate,” Bobby smiled.

“Just about sums Buck up,” Chim added.

Knowing it wasn’t either of them, and being fairly confident that Eddie had Maddie, Buck was still puzzling out who might have bought his sweater as he pulled it over his head. Then he caught Hen smiling with satisfaction as he ruffled his hair and smoothed the sweater down across his chest. She winked at him, and he grinned. Not such a Secret Santa after all.

Across from him, Maddie stared at her sweater with tears in her eyes. Buck darted a quick glance at Eddie, who was grinding his foot back and forth against the ground as he waited for a reaction.

“What did you get, Mads?” Buck called, putting him out of his misery, and his sister turned the sweater around to face them. It was black, a flattering maternity cut, with a red bow across the bump and the words _‘Best_ _P_ _resent_ _E_ _ver’_ above it. A chorus of _awws_ rose from the rest of the room.

“It’s perfect,” Maddie whispered, tears sparkling in her eyes, and Buck almost felt Eddie’s audible sigh of relief.

As he’d been waiting nervously for the verdict on Maddie’s sweater, Eddie was the last to open his Secret Santa. His eyes widened in surprise as he unwrapped a navy sweater with a Fairisle pattern in red and white, complete with reindeer. It was easily the most tasteful sweater of the bunch, and as he slipped it on it clung to every muscle and angle of his body.

Karen whistled.

“You’ll be fighting them off, Eddie!”

“I don’t know about that,” Eddie said, smiling and shaking his head modestly.

“That’s a nice sweater,” Athena agreed. “Whoever got you for Secret Santa went easy on you.”

Hen arched an eyebrow in Buck’s direction, and he determinedly avoided her gaze and took a gulp of hot chocolate.

*****

The ice rink at Pershing Square was flanked by palm trees and encircled by skyscrapers. It wasn’t exactly a winter wonderland out of a holiday movie, but festive music blasted out across the rink, string lights twinkled overhead, and the atmosphere was alive with childish excitement.

Athena waited behind the railings with Nia as the rest of the team slipped and slid across the rink, finding their skating feet. Hen was dragged onto the ice by Karen, but soon hauled herself back to the edge after posing for some photos with her family. Karen and Denny then joined Harry and Bobby, who was in his element giving an impromptu skating lesson.

Maddie and Chimney needed no such lessons. They skated in perfect time around the rink, the Hallmark card of couples, laughing and holding hands and stopping for selfies and for Chimney to caress Maddie’s bump, which was wrapped in her new Christmas sweater and big enough to stick out from under her coat.

Which left Buck, Eddie and Christopher. Buck insisted that they get Chris out on the ice, that it would be good for him, that he should be able to take part in something that all the other kids could do. He reminded Eddie that he’d promised Christopher that they could try new stuff together, and said that with both of them there to help him, there was no way it could go wrong. Buck won him over with what Hen called his golden retriever smile, and his unbridled excitement at helping Christopher. How could Eddie have known what a terrible idea it was?

Eddie was on high alert as they moved gingerly across the ice, watching for anyone who might slam into them and knock Chris down, for his legs to give way or for any indication that he was tired or not enjoying himself. He kicked himself for not hiring one of those penguins that the younger kids had to help stabilise them on the ice, even though he knew Chris would have protested because Harry and Denny weren’t using them and he wanted to be independent.

But it turned out that Christopher wasn’t the one he needed to worry about. In a return to the same form he showed at the fairytales on ice bloodbath, Buck was having a lot of trouble staying upright. Eddie marvelled at how someone who prided himself on his fitness, who loved every sport known to man, and who could run, lift weights and abseil down buildings and cliffs, be so tragically uncoordinated on the ice. It was like watching Bambi.

“Whoa, easy there, Buck!”

Eddie flung his arms out again for about the fifth time, temporarily leaving Christopher to his own devices, and grabbed hold of Buck as he flailed towards the ice. His chest collided with Eddie’s, nearly knocking him flat on his back, and his face got so close that their noses bumped and Eddie could feel Buck’s warm breath across his cheek. Suddenly Eddie’s legs didn’t feel so stable anymore either, and he found himself clutching Buck’s arms tighter than was really necessary.

Luckily, they were in too much ice-related peril for anyone else to notice, least of all Buck. As they slipped and slid across the ice, both at risk of going down, Christopher cracked up like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Eddie tried to inch them both back up to standing.

“Bring your feet in, Buck!”

“I’m trying. Why is the ice so slippery?”

“Why are you so uncoordinated?”

“Why are _you_ so perfect at everything?”

Eddie’s face heated at the compliment, despite the chill of the ice, and he ducked his head, hoping that Buck couldn’t see.

“You’re impossible,” he said instead, as Bobby glided up gracefully alongside them, taking hold of Christopher’s hands.

“Hey buddy!” he said, crouching to speak to him at his eye level. “You know, I used to be a figure skating champ when I wasn’t much older than you. How about I show you how the professionals do it?”

“Cool!” Chris said, beaming.

“Hey, Bobby, you sure about that?” Eddie asked, finally standing up straight again.

“Of course, I’m always happy to show someone the ropes. Besides,” he glanced at his firefighters with a smile. Eddie was currently the only thing stopping Buck from faceplanting the ice. “It looks like you two have your hands full.” Buck and Eddie look at each other, and Eddie was suddenly very aware of the fact that they were still holding hands.

“OK, I think you got this now,” he said, letting go abruptly and backing up. Buck struck out on his own, heading for the stability of the nearest railing, but those ridiculously long legs somehow slipped from under him again. This time he tumbled to the ground, taking Eddie down with him, and Bobby and Christopher left them groaning in a heap on the ice.

“Come on, Buck. Back up on your feet,” Eddie ordered as he clambered back to standing. He reached a hand down for Buck and yanked him up, nearly regretting it when Buck’s feet instantly skidded apart and he nearly did the splits.

“How are you so _good_ at this?” Buck grumbled, letting go of Eddie and brushing ice off his jacket. “I thought the only ice you saw in Texas was in the bottom of a margarita glass?”

“How are you so _bad_ at this? You grew up in Pennsylvania, don’t the rivers freeze over there in winter or something?”

Buck sighed, frustration etched across his face.

“I just can’t seem to get the hang of it.”

His expression got the better of Eddie. It was one thing to roll his eyes at how clumsy Buck was. But when he could see how hard he was trying, Eddie felt compelled to make it easier for him. One of his favourite things about Buck was how kind and good he was at his core. It made him want to be a better person too.  
“Here,” Eddie sighed, holding out his hands for Buck’s, and trying to ignore the way his stomach flipped at the hope lighting up Buck’s face.

“Are you sure, Eddie? I don’t wanna drag you down with me.”

“Bit late for that,” Eddie muttered.

*

“I just don’t get it. How can two people be so _dumb_ , even firefighters?”

“Hey!” Hen protested. “You’re including your husband and your friend in that group.”

  
“He’s a captain and you’re a paramedic,” Athena retorted, with a dismissive wave of her hand. “Your aptitude for the job demands more than just knowing how to smash things with an axe.”

Eddie had given up trying to teach ice skating at a distance, and now he held tightly onto Buck’s hand instead, coaxing him through each step. Buck was frowning so hard in concentration that he didn’t notice how, every now and then, a smile softened Eddie’s face when he looked at Buck. Athena watched it disappear behind a careful mask whenever Buck glanced up, but she wasn’t sure Eddie even knew he was doing it. Just as she was certain that Buck didn’t notice how his smile widened whenever he looked up and met Eddie’s gaze. It was a shy, proud smile that she wasn’t sure she’d ever seen on Buck before. It suited him.

Watching them, Athena realised just how much Eddie had changed Buck. She remembered the hot-headed, bone-headed ladies’ man she first met three years ago, so different from who she saw now. With Eddie – and Christopher – Buck was calmer, more responsible. All the best parts of himself were still on show, but they’d sanded off his rough edges. Now, she saw a happy young man in love.

As Buck and Eddie started to make progress around the ice, laughing and enjoying themselves, neither one seemed to notice that they were still holding hands. Athena sighed.

“Just look at them. How can they not know what the rest of us see?”

*

Christopher was doing a great job, but Bobby could tell he was getting tired. So he parked him close by, where he could lean against the railings but still be close to the action.

“Is he OK?”

One of the ice crew skated up to Bobby and indicated Chris with a slight incline of her head.

“He’s fine, just a little tired.”

“He’s doing a great job. My nephew has CP, and he’d never be able to manage this.”

They looked back at Christopher, who was cheering at Buck and Eddie, who called to him as they passed. Under Eddie’s careful tuition, Buck finally seemed to have found his feet, and was standing tall and smiling. Bobby noticed that they were still holding hands. Neither of them seemed to realise, though Bobby could see Chim not-so-subtly filming them from across the ice. Before he could shoot a warning look at him, Bobby’s attention was distracted by the woman from the ice crew talking to Christopher.

“Are they your dads?” she asked, crouched down at his eye level.

Chris nodded.

“You’re lucky to have two such handsome dads,” she smiled. “They make a cute couple.”

“I know,” Christopher replied with a bright smile.

Bobby raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.


	3. 'Tis the Damn Season

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The LAFD Lights event brings festive baking, some mistletoe-based angst and misunderstanding, and the deadline looms for the Fire Truck of Love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The word count got out of hand again...get comfy before you start reading!
> 
> Shout out to Sarandom_8, who requested some Christmas biscuit baking. I hope you enjoy it!

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“I think Santa’s been drink-driving! He’s caused a pile up down by Venice Beach!”

*

“Well I’m not sure how well you think your mistletoe scheme is going, Chim, but I think you need to rethink your options.”

Hen and Chimney pulled up behind the fire truck at their latest call, where a man dressed in a Santa outfit had swerved into the wrong lane while drunk.

“You saw them when Eddie saved Buck from Taylor Kelly the other day. If we hadn’t walked round the corner it would have happened then!”

Chim jumped down from the ambulance and went to get their bags. Ahead of them, Buck and Eddie were cutting the roof off one of the cars, and Athena was breathalysing Santa.

“That was days ago, and nothing’s happened since. You’re running out of time,” Hen said, taking the bag Chimney held out to her and walking with him towards the crash site. “It’s 22nd December, we work our last shift before Christmas _tomorrow!_ ”

“I swear, we’ve still got time. It can still happen.”

“What are you two up to?”

Athena had left Santa in the charge of Officer Williams and snuck up on them without either Hen or Chimney seeing.

“Nothing,” they chorused, and she folded her arms and shot them her patented eyebrow raise.

“Chimney’s playing Cupid,” Hen said, breaking under her stare first.

“Well I figured...the mistletoe was a clue.”

“Yes, but he’s using it to try and set up Buck and Eddie.”

Chim gawped at her.

“You’re _such_ a snitch.”

“I doubt you were an entirely innocent party in this, Henrietta.”

“Don’t you _Henrietta_ me, Athena Grant-Nash.”

“Have you considered that perhaps they don’t _want_ to be set up?” Athena asked.

“Hey, what happened to _‘why can’t they see what see?’_ at the ice skating the other day?” Hen protested.

“I stand by that, but sometimes you need to leave people alone to figure things out for themselves.”

Bobby appeared around the side of the ambulance.

“Hen, Chim, we need someone to check over the driver of the second vehicle...” He hesitated. “What’s going on?”

“Your firefighters are playing matchmaker,” Athena said, and Bobby shot Hen and Chimney a look that matched hers so closely they both did a double take.

“Have you heard that thing about couples who spend so much time together they start to look alike…?” Chimney said in a stage whisper to Hen, who snorted.

“So is this what the Fire Truck of Love was really all about, Chim?” Bobby asked. “Maddie put you up to this?”

“Actually, no, this was my plan. I hoped it might give Buck and Eddie a nudge in the right direction.”

“And which direction was that?” Athena asked dryly. “Because from where I’m standing they’re no further on than they were a week ago.”

“You guys coming?” Buck called uncertainly from where he and Eddie were triaging the driver of the second car. Luckily they were out of earshot, though from the frown on Buck’s face he knew something was up.

“Be right there, Buck!” Chim called. He looked back at Athena, Bobby and Hen. “We have another 24 hours left before we clock off for Christmas. I’m not giving up yet. I believe in miracles!”

“I think you’re gonna need one with those two,” Athena said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and arrest Santa.”

*

That night was the final night of the LAFD Lights event, and the 118’s fire house glowed with festive spirit. Hen and Chimney had just showered and changed into fresh uniforms that didn’t smell of smoke when an unexpected visitor appeared in the first influx of visitors trickling in to marvel at the decorations.

“Lena!” Chim called, and Lena Bosko strode up to meet them.

“Happy Holidays. Thought I’d come and check out your lights, get in the Christmas spirit.” She cast an impressed eye around the station. “It’s a better show than we managed.”

“Cap’s strict about decorating,” Hen said.

“Speaking of which...were all your Christmas tree decorations _normal_ this year?”

Hen frowned.

“Not exactly.”

“Did any of them look like this?”

Lena extracted a decoration from her pocket and held it up. It was a pair of breasts covered with Santa hats.

“We got the male version,” Hen told her. She looked at Chim. “At least it wasn’t just us. What a bunch of assholes.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Lena said. “I’ve been comparing notes with some of the other fire houses this week to find out who did it.”

“Do you know who?” Chim asked. Lena nodded.

“Those jackasses at the 105.”

“Guess they’re homophobic _and_ misogynistic,” Hen said, rolling her eyes.

“Want to help me get payback?”

“Is what you have in mind illegal or likely to lose us our jobs?” Chim asked. Lena pulled a face at him.

“ _No_.”

“Then count us in.”

“Great, I’ll text you when I have a plan.”

“Are you sticking around?” Hen asked.

“I have no other plans for tonight.”

“Then you’d better come up to the kitchen. Bobby’s got us doing some festive baking. You won’t want to miss this.”

Up in the loft, Bobby had set up two baking stations, with chairs set out in front like they were at a show. A small crowd of early guests already mingled, Athena, Karen and Carla among them. Lena slid into a spare seat as Hen and Chimney moved to stand behind one bench. Buck and Eddie were already waiting behind the other. Each bench was covered with a cloth, hiding mysterious lumps of cooking equipment.

Bobby cleared his throat.

“Welcome to the first –”

“Probably last,” Chim muttered, and Bobby shot him a look.

“– LAFD Great Gingerbread Bake Off!”

Karen and Athena whooped, Lena wolf-whistled, and the children in the audience giggled.

“Now, in the interest of not giving anyone food poisoning today, _I_ have pre-made the gingerbread dough rather than my firefighters, as the less said about their culinary skills, the better. However, I _have_ left them with baking and decorating duties.”

Bobby gestured to Hen and Chimney.

“On my right, we have Firefighter Wilson and Firefighter Han...what’s your team name?”

“Team Rebar,” Hen said, without missing a beat.

“Really?” Chim asked.

“And on my left we have Firefighter Buckley and Firefighter Diaz. What’s your team name?”

“Team Buddie,” Chim answered for them, and Hen snorted.

“What does that mean?” Eddie asked, frowning suspiciously.

“It’s a combination of both your names,” Hen said. “And I think it’s genius.”

“Couldn’t we be something cooler than that?” Buck asked.

“What, our names aren’t cool enough?”

“Why couldn’t we be ‘Team Firestorm’ or something?”

Ignoring him, Bobby whipped the cloths off the benches with a theatrical flourish.

“OK, Team Rebar and Team Buddie, this is what you’ll be working with!”

Each bench had a large lump of dough in a bowl, piping bags of royal icing, a bag of flour and a rolling pin, an assortment of cutters and several smaller bowls containing sweets for decoration: red and green sprinkles, gumdrops, tiny silver balls and edible glitter.

“Wow, you really went all out, Cap,” Hen commented, examining the display.

“Nothing but the best for our community. You’d better remember that in your decorating efforts,” Bobby said, eyeballing each of them with an expression that told them to behave. “First challenge: roll out your dough, and use the cutters to make some cookies. We have gingerbread men, Christmas trees and snowflakes.” Catching sight of Eddie, who’d lifted the dough straight out of the bowl and was now trying to unpeel it from his fingers, he smiled and added, “You might want to flour your work surfaces first. Gingerbread dough can be quite sticky.”

“Relax, I’ve seen Bobby do this before,” Hen told Chimney, grabbing a handful of flour and attempting to sprinkle it artfully across the work surface. Chim coughed as he accidentally inhaled some of the dust.

“Maybe you should stick to picking what shapes we’re going to make,” Buck smirked at Eddie, who was wiping his hands clean.

“Just because you’re a better cook than me, doesn’t follow that you’re going to be a better baker.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Buck started flouring the work surface while Eddie studied the cookie cutters. Glancing around at his crew’s serious faces, Buck couldn’t resist. Shooting a quick grin at the audience to clue them in, he gathered some flour and lobbed it across the room at Hen and Chimney, then turned and threw the rest over Eddie. Shouts broke out from all three of them almost instantly as the audience laughed.

“Objection, Cap! Firefighter Buckley’s throwing flour at us – and his teammate – rather than at the dough!” Chim called, trying to shake flour off his uniform, as Hen wiped her glasses and glared daggers at Buck. Bobby turned and raised an eyebrow at Buck, who grinned and ducked his head over the work bench.

“We’re on the same team, Buck!” Eddie protested, laughing despite himself as he ran his hands through his hair, trying to turn it from white back to brown. Buck laughed too and reached out to help, brushing flour off Eddie’s shoulders.

“Well on the plus side, at least we know you’ll still look hot when that white hair’s real.”

The words slipped out before Buck could think them through. He wondered for a split second if he’d only thought them, not said them aloud, but judging from Chimney’s laugh covered by an unconvincing cough and the way Eddie flushed, he knew that was a vain hope. With no hope of recovery, Buck dropped his hands from Eddie’s shoulders, grabbed the rolling pin and began rolling out the dough roughly, wishing that the ground would swallow him whole instead.

“Here, you need to make sure it’s the same thickness all the way round,” Eddie said, his voice quieter than normal. He leaned in so their shoulders bumped, and rested his hands on top of Buck’s, guiding the way he moved the rolling pin across the dough. His hands were warm and slightly rough, and Buck realised that nearly every other time their hands had touched before, at least one of them was wearing gloves. He didn’t like to admit, even to himself, how much he enjoyed the feeling of Eddie’s hands holding his.

“How do you know that?” he asked instead, but his voice came out with a slight wobble to it that betrayed him. Eddie either didn’t notice or took pity on him and didn’t mention it.

“Remember that time Chris was sick and you came round and brought him cookies and made me watch the _Great British Baking Show_ with him to cheer him up?” Buck nodded and Eddie shrugged, looking a little embarrassed. “Well, they mentioned that you have to roll out dough to an even thickness all the way round so it bakes properly.”

“I can’t believe you remembered that.”

“Says the guy who’s like a walking encyclopaedia.”

“That’s just the way my mind works, collecting useless information.”

“It’s not useless. You’re a lot smarter than anyone gives you credit for, Buck.”

They were staring at each other now, and Buck registered vaguely that, even though they’d stopped rolling the dough, Eddie’s hands still rested lightly over his.

“Bakers!” Bobby shouted, and Buck and Eddie started and stepped apart. “You have 30 minutes remaining, and that includes 10 minutes baking time. Better get those cookies cut!”

“All I can say is that it’s a good job we’ve got cutters,” Hen said, hands on her hips. “Or we’d have a tray full of gingerbread mutant blobs.”

“You heard the man, get cutting!” Chimney said, throwing a snowflake cutter at her.

“You’ve got a better imagination than me, what are we making?” Eddie asked Buck. Buck frowned for a moment, eyes darting over their decorations and the cutters, then grinned.

“How about we make the 118 in a snowstorm at a Christmas tree farm?”

Eddie smiled.

“Perfect.”

Once they’d cut out all their shapes and placed them carefully onto baking trays, Bobby made a quick inspection before allowing them to put their creations in the oven to bake. Buck and Chimney made a show of jostling each other as they slid their trays into the oven, and Bobby kept the crowd entertained while the biscuits baked and the two teams washed up.

“Right, this is game on!” Chimney called across the room to Buck and Eddie, once they were backa at their stations with their biscuits, ready to decorate. “Hope you can take the heat, boys.”

“We’re firefighters, Chim, comes with the territory,” Eddie said.

“Yeah, if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen, Chim,” Buck added.

“Oh, this trash talk is just off the scale,” Hen muttered, casting a disparaging look at all of them as she piped icing onto a gingerbread snowflake.

“I think this might be my hidden talent,” Buck said, bending over a cookie with the piping bag.

“It was very well-hidden,” Chimney commented.

“Chim, stop talking and start adding gumdrop buttons.”

By the end of their baking session, Chimney had eaten half the gumdrop buttons (much to the amusement of the children watching), Hen had dumped edible glitter all over her clean uniform, then managed to wipe it all over her face, and the kitchen was in chaos.

“I might not be a very good cook, but _you’re_ the messiest baker I’ve ever met, and that includes my nine year-old son,” Eddie said, eyeing Buck as they plated their finished biscuits. “You’re covered in enough icing and glitter that we could put you on a tray and try to pass you off as a cookie.”

“I’m an acquired taste,” Buck retorted, trying to brush glitter off his arms. “Not to everyone’s liking.”

“Their loss,” Eddie said quietly, and Buck flushed.

“You’re not much better,” he said. “You’ve got glitter in your _hair_. Not that it doesn’t add to the hot firefighter look.”

He stepped closer and ran his fingers through Eddie’s hair, shaking some of the glitter out. It took sheer willpower not to tighten his hold and tug Eddie’s head back so he could kiss a line along his jaw and down to his throat.

“Here, you’ve got something on your face,” Eddie laughed, oblivious to Buck’s train of thought. He ran a finger down the side of Buck’s cheek and took a smear of icing off.

“I got it,” Buck said, catching his hand and holding it still. Eyes still on Eddie, Buck bent his head and closed his mouth around Eddie’s finger, sucking the icing gently off. He heard Eddie gasp, saw his eyes flutter half-closed, felt the shock jolt from Eddie’s hand through his body. Buck felt goosebumps break out on his own skin.

“You’ve got glitter all over your face,” he murmured softly as he let go of Eddie’s hand, eyes roaming across his jaw and lips.

“Are you going to take that off for me too?” Eddie asked, his voice gravelly and uneven, as his eyes refocused on Buck. They seemed darker than before, his expression unreadable. Buck swallowed.

“OK, this is getting ridiculous,” Hen muttered, loudly enough that her voice travelled.

“It’s like watching porn,” Chimney said, shaking his head and gawping at them.

“Ahem,” Bobby cleared his throat loudly and indicated the children in the audience with a slight tilt of his head. “Shall we get the judges up to see what you’ve made? Besides turning the kitchen into a bomb site.”

He turned to the small group watching them, and Buck put a step or two between him and Eddie, willing his heart rate to return to normal. Eddie was staring down at their bench, his face red. In the audience, Lena Bosko was staring at them both, and Athena’s eyebrows had almost disappeared into her hairline.

“And finally, the most important part of this contest – the judging!” Bobby said. “We’ve got some special guest judges with us this evening – would they like to come up?”

Athena, Karen and Carla nudged Harry, Denny and Christopher to their feet, and the three boys made their way to the benches, where the 118 had laid out their biscuits.

Hen and Chimney had gone all out with decorating. There wasn’t an inch of plain gingerbread on view – everything sparkled with icing, sprinkles, gumdrop buttons and edible glitter.

“It looks like Christmas threw up over your decorations,” Buck muttered, and Hen elbowed him in the ribs as the boys laughed. Having looked at and tasted Hen and Chimney’s cookies, the judges moved on to Buck and Eddie’s creation.

“I call it ‘A Holly, Jolly, LAFD Christmas’,” Buck said proudly, with a flourish that made Christopher laugh. “And look, boys, you can tell who everyone is. That’s Denny’s mom, with her glasses, and that’s Bobby, because he’s wearing a helmet. And that’s Chimney, because he’s got a metal bar sticking out of his head.”

“Say _what_?”

“You iced a rebar onto his head?” Bobby asked, holding back his laughter with difficulty. Eddie and Hen didn’t bother holding back, both laughing as Buck smiled innocently at Bobby and their judges.

“How else would you know it was Chimney?”

“You could have written ‘Mr April’ on his gingerbread man in icing,” Hen suggested.

“OK, is this payback for the Fire Truck of Love? Because it’s a cheap shot, guys.”

“What’s the Fire Truck of Love?” Christopher asked.

“OK, time to change the subject,” Eddie said hurriedly.

“OK boys,” Bobby said. “Decision time. Which team do you think has won – Team Rebar or Team Buddie?”

*

“Hey Mads!” Buck called to his sister, as she strode into the fire house about fifteen minutes later. Maddie smiled and waved, Josh walking beside her. They both wore civilian clothes, Maddie proudly sporting her Secret Santa Christmas sweater from Eddie.

“You missed watching your little brother trash your boyfriend at gingerbread decorating!” Buck gloated.

“The judges felt sorry for you,” Chimney insisted, walking past him to Maddie. “And if you tell me Christopher wasn’t biased in Eddie’s favour, I’m going to smash you in the face with that leftover flour. If there’s any left after you threw it all over the kitchen.”

“Sounds like we missed quite a show,” Josh smiled.

“I’m sorry you didn’t win, Howie,” Maddie said. “But I have a consolation prize for you.” She grabbed Chimney’s hand and dragged him back under the mistletoe again.

“You’ve already done that, you know!” Buck called after them.

“What, like there’s a limit?” Maddie replied, grinning.

“Gross!”

Buck pulled a face of mock disgust and turned to Josh.

“Chim hung mistletoe from our truck for a week and called it the Fire Truck of Love.”

“I heard. It’s been all over the news.”

“Yeah, we’ve kind of been setting people up across the city.”

“And I thought Valentine’s Day was in February,” Josh said.

“Yeah, I know. Chim’s on some sort of one-man mission to hook everyone up in time for the holidays. It’s fine if you’re coupled up like them. But for solos like you and me, it’s a bit more dangerous.”

They walked slowly towards the carol singers, who were gathered beneath the Christmas tree the 118 had decorated the week before.

“I saw the video of you all with the reindeer on the freeway,” Josh said. “I didn’t know you were such a talented reindeer rancher!”

Buck laughed.

“If you replace ‘talented’ with ‘tragic’, you’re about right. Eddie and Bobby were the proper ranchers there.”

“Oh I don’t know, I could see you with a white beard and a Santa outfit,” Josh said.

Their gazes strayed to Maddie and Chimney, still making out under the mistletoe, and Buck shook his head, grinning.

“That just shouldn’t be allowed in public. It’s a good job he makes her happy, or I’d have to get all ‘protective younger brother’ about it.”

“So you haven’t been caught under there yet?” Josh asked.

“Not yet. Eddie and I have been looking out for each other to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“So you haven’t found anyone in LA worth meeting under the mistletoe?”

Buck hesitated as his thoughts automatically jumped to Eddie. His heart thumped painfully against his ribs as he remembered those _moments_ they’d been having lately: at the Christmas tree farm, around the side of the truck, at the gingerbread bake off. But he remembered Hen’s knowing looks and Maddie’s words from the day before, and shook his head regretfully.

“Not yet.”

*

“Well if nothing else, _I’ve_ had fun with the mistletoe this week,” Chimney said, wrapping an arm around Maddie as they walked back across the fire house floor. “How are you doing?”

“Tired,” Maddie smiled. “Seems I’m always tired these days.”

“We’ll head off soon. Get you home and into a nice bath,” Chim suggested.

“That sounds amazing.”

“Umm, guys,” Hen hissed, as she passed them with Karen and Denny. “We have a _problem_.”

She nodded across to their truck, where Buck and Josh were talking and laughing. The mistletoe was in close range – if Buck took just a few steps back they would be underneath it. As they watched, Josh reached out and briefly touched Buck’s arm, laughing at something he’d said. Across from them, sat in the gym with a wounded look in his eyes, was Eddie.

“Well I didn’t see this coming,” Chim commented. “Dammit.”

“Oh no,” Maddie said. “This is all my fault!”

“ _Why_ is it your fault?” Chim asked her suspiciously. Maddie covered her eyes and peeked through the gaps between her fingers.

“I might have gone a little too hard on the tough love at the toy drive.”

Chimney sighed.

“What did you say...?”

“I told Buck if he didn’t think he had a chance with Eddie then he should move on...”

“You did _what?!_ ”

Maddie winced.

“I thought it might push him into making the first move. How was I to know he’d actually _listen_ to me for once and _move on_?”

Chimney pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t suppose there’s _a_ _ny_ chance that Josh isn’t interested in Buck?”

Maddie shook her head.

“You saw them at our poker night. I think he’s always had a bit of a crush on Buck, but I never did anything about it because Buck’s my brother, I thought it would be weird setting him up with my friend from work...”

“Umm, if friends setting friends up is weird then we’re all in trouble here...”

“...And I wasn’t sure where Buck was at or if he was into guys right now,” Maddie continued, ignoring him.

“So you told him to get over Eddie and move on?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And we’ve all spent the last week trying to push Eddie to be brave enough to admit how he feels about Buck.”

“Yeah...”

“But now Buck’s off with another guy...”

Chimney gestured as he spoke.

“That’s right.”

“We are _never_ letting you get involved in a plan again.”

“So what do we do now?”

Someone cleared their throat behind them, and Maddie and Chimney turned to see Lena Bosko, Santa hat slightly askew, carton of eggnog in one hand.

“You need Santa’s Little Helper to step in? I can go and talk to Eddie for you, convince him he’s still got a chance and give him a kick up the ass to do something about it.”

Chimney frowned sceptically.

“You sure you’ve got the right touch for this, Lena? You did send Eddie to fight club.”

Lena rolled her eyes.

“Are we still on this? I’m very sorry I introduced Eddie to fight club. I thought it would be a healthy outlet for his issues. How was I supposed to know that it would send him into a one-man meltdown?”

“That was Eddie’s choice, Chim, don’t blame Lena,” Maddie objected.

“Hey, you’ve just sent your brother into the arms of another man, you can’t talk.”

Lena ignored him and appealed directly to Maddie.

“Trust me, I know how to get through to Diaz. I’ve got this.”

Maddie nodded.

“I trust you.”

“Great. Hold my eggnog.”

Lena set off, then came back again.

“Actually scratch that, I’m gonna need all the help I can get if I’m dealing with Eddie’s level of repressed.”

Lena reclaimed the eggnog, knocked back a gulp, and strode off again. Maddie looked at Chimney, who pointed at Buck and Josh.

“Get over there and run interference before Buck ends up kissing the wrong guy under the mistletoe. I’m getting Hen. We need crisis talks.”

*

Lena found Eddie sat on a bench in the gym, staring sullenly at Buck and Josh, still talking next to the fire truck. They hadn’t made it within range of the mistletoe yet, but Lena could see Josh’s eyes darting back and forth between the nearest sprig and Buck’s face, and she knew it was only a matter of time before they made those final steps. So could Eddie, judging by the storm in his eyes.

“Hey Diaz. Happy Holidays.”

“Hey Bosko. You talking to me again?”

“It’s nearly Christmas, I figured we should all forgive and forget and move on with our lives. Eggnog?”

Eddie accepted the carton and took a swig, eyes drifting back to the truck. Lena followed his gaze.

“You and the Golden Retriever still not hooked up then?”

Eddie started like she’d run him through with electricity.

“Excuse me?” Eddie's voice came out slightly strangled, and he took another gulp of eggnog to cover it.

“I mean, I was sure you guys would be together by now,” Lena said. “It’s been over a year since you kissed and made up, right? Not literally, but I assumed that would only be a matter of time.”

Eddie’s face flushed a deep shade of red as she spoke.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Lena.”

“Oh come on, Eddie, it’s not hard. All that pent-up rage about the lawsuit? Who gets that bent out of shape about anyone if they didn’t have the hots for them?”

“This is why you’ve forgiven me? So you can come over here and hassle me about Buck?”

Lena took the eggnog back from him and gulped down another mouthful.

“It helps. But no, I’m trying to be a good friend. Or get into the holiday spirit and all that.”

Eddie stood abruptly.

“I’m not talking about this here.”

Lena surged to her feet too.

“Then where? And with who? You can’t keep your feelings bottled up forever, look how that worked out for you last time.”

Eddie strode towards the locker room. Not letting it go, Lena followed and lightly touched his arm to stop him.

“Come on. Let’s go and talk about this somewhere else.”

She shook the carton at him as a bribe.

“Got plenty of this left.”

*

Buck’s attention was caught by a sudden movement from the gym. Eddie was heading for the locker room, his face flushed and his expression conflicted. And right behind him was Lena Bosko.

Buck pushed down the wave of jealousy that surged through his chest at the sight of them walking off together. He knew nothing had ever happened between Eddie and Lena, that they’d actually parted on pretty bad terms after Eddie snapped at her, believing that she had sold him out to Bobby about the fight club. But it seemed clear that they’d made things up, from the way she touched Eddie’s arm and the way they were sharing a carton of eggnog.

“You OK?”

Buck realised Josh had asked him a question, and that he’d been staring over his shoulder for at least a minute at Eddie instead.

“Yeah. Sure. Sorry, what were you saying?”

“I was just asking what you were doing for the holidays?”

“Umm, I don’t know, actually. I was working last year, and the year before that I was at Bobby and Athena’s. I think Maddie and Chim want a last Christmas that’s just the two of them before the baby comes, so Albert and I were trying to think of Plan B.”

“Well a bunch of us are getting together for a Friendsmas, then going out for the night. Karaoke guaranteed – I hear you do a good _Eye of the Tiger_ impression.”

Buck laughed.

“Maddie told you that?”

“Well she may not have used the exact same wording...”

“Maddie would never say my karaoke was anything other than shockingly bad.”

“Well I wanted to be kind,” Josh laughed. “Maybe you’ll just have to come along and prove me wrong!” He hesitated, and then reached up. “You’ve got some glitter in your hair.”

Josh lightly brushed Buck’s hair, shaking edible glitter out of it. It didn’t feel like it did when Eddie touched him, that zip of electricity down his spine, but Buck knew that simple action meant he’d reached a crossroads. He’d suspected for a while now that Josh was into him, and although he was flattered, it had never occurred to him to do anything about it. Once he realised how he felt about Eddie, no one else stood a chance. But now Buck was standing within range of the mistletoe with someone else, and his best friend wasn’t coming to save him anytime soon, no matter the pact they’d made, because he was off somewhere else with Lena Bosko.

Buck knew he hadn’t imagined those moments with Eddie over the past week. He hoped...he _knew_...there was something between them. He could feel that charged energy in the air whenever they got too close, when a touch or a gaze lingered longer than it should. It went beyond any normal, platonic friendship, and the past week had allowed him to really hope for the first time that the feelings he’d carried for nearly two years now might not be entirely one-sided.

But maybe Maddie was right. Even if Eddie felt something for him, he was never going to feel the same way Buck did. He couldn’t risk the closest friendship and best working partnership he’d ever known, for something that might not work out. If he struck out and Eddie panicked, then he would lose Eddie _and_ Christopher. And that thought just wasn’t bearable. Buck hadn’t realised just how much he needed the Diazes in his life, until a tsunami and a lawsuit nearly took them from him. They were _everything_ , and he couldn’t afford to mess that up.

Josh was a nice guy. Another 9-1-1 dispatcher, like Abby, but he didn’t have to hold that against him. He seemed like fun. He wouldn’t mess him around. Buck knew another romantic when he saw one. Josh would be kind and considerate. He would do thoughtful things like get Buck tickets to see his favourite sports team, even though Josh didn’t like sports. They would go on weekend trips to San Francisco and Sausalito, or even to New York at Christmas, so they could go skating at the Rockefeller Center and experience snow in December, a foreign concept in Los Angeles.

And, as they spent less and less time together, Eddie would meet another woman and get married again, maybe give Chris another brother or sister. Their friendship would step back to spending time together at work, or at weekend barbecues with the rest of the 118 and their families.

It wasn’t a vision of the future that brought Buck any joy. But maybe if he let go of the unattainable dream he’d been carrying, the flame of hope that something might happen with Eddie one day, then he could learn to find happiness somewhere else, with someone else.

Buck sighed, and took a step back, knowing that Josh would follow, knowing that it would lead them under the mistletoe.

“Buck!”

Maddie appeared at his side.

“There you are. Chim needs you.”

She had a hand on his arm and was pulling him away before he could even breathe a sigh of relief.

*

Outside, Eddie took a few deep breaths of mild winter air. He had that suffocating, enclosed feeling that took him right back to the well collapse. At the time he’d wondered at the irony of travelling thousands of mile to fight a war in a foreign land, only to come back and die beneath American soil. And now all these feelings were closing in on him like the earth had that night, blocking his lungs and throat and pressing down on his chest.

“Diaz?”

Lena waited beside him, concern in her eyes. She had noticed the shift in his behaviour. Eddie tried to speak, but his tongue seemed stuck to the roof of his mouth.

“Eddie, you can tell me. I’m not here to judge.”

A momentary flash of compassion in her eyes, the softer side under her tough exterior, caught him off guard. And it burst through the dam in his chest. Suddenly the weight of keeping these feelings to himself, hidden from everyone he knew, hidden from _Buck_ , was just too much. Eddie wanted, _needed_ , to say it out loud, to tell someone and make it real.

“Give me that.”

He took the eggnog carton off Lena, knocked another mouthful back and let out a long, slow breath, rallying his courage.

“OK...you’re right.”

Eddie took a moment, trying to order his thoughts. Lena waited silently, watching him intently.

“I guess I took the lawsuit harder than everyone else because it...hurt me more than the rest of them. It felt like Buck had turned his back on me, on _us_. After the tsunami, I began to realise that I have these... _feelings_...for Buck. Feelings that weren’t exactly platonic. So I acted in a way I wouldn’t have done if it’d been anyone else.”

He handed the carton back to Lena, and leant his back against the wall of the fire house.

“When Buck told me that Christopher was missing, I was terrified. But when I saw how torn apart Buck was...my son was missing, he could have been...and there was this part of me that just wanted to hug Buck and tell him everything would be OK and that it wasn’t his fault. And then when we found Christopher again, Buck’s reaction...no one would have done more than he did that day. He loves Chris like he’s his own son. And I never asked that of him. He did it all of his own free will. And Chris adores him. And every day since I think I’ve been fall–”

Eddie stopped abruptly. He couldn’t say it. He still couldn’t find the courage to form the words, to say them out loud and set them free. But this was the closest he’d come to it so far.

“I’ve never told anyone this,” he said, and laughed disbelievingly. “I bailed on therapy because of Buck.”

Lena shot him a wide-eyed look.

“But I thought your captain –”

“Yeah, he made me do it after the fight club. I never told him that I quit after a couple of months though.”

“Why?”

“Because Frank wouldn’t stop pushing about Buck. We touched on the lawsuit and the tsunami, and he kept asking how they made me feel and asked about my friendship with Buck. I knew he would guess if I talked about Buck. I knew I would break and tell him if he asked. And I wasn’t ready to face it. I wasn’t ready for everyone to know.”

“Well you’re not exactly subtle, they’ve probably guessed.”

“What happened to having my back?”

Lena nudged his shoulder with hers.

“Sorry. Force of habit.”

She took another swig of eggnog, then frowned.

“Didn’t Frank ask your captain why you’d stopped coming to the sessions?”

“Confidentiality,” Eddie replied, shaking his head. “Unless he thought I was at immediate risk of hurting myself or someone else, he’s not allowed to. He called a couple of times, tried to get me to reschedule the appointments. I ignored the calls, let them ring out and never phoned him back.”

The sound of carol singers floated out to them from inside. Buck would be listening to them right now. If he wasn’t kissing Josh under the mistletoe. Eddie’s stomach twisted uncomfortably.

“Anyways, none of this matters,” he sighed. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Buck is clearly not interested in me.”

Eddie jerked his head back at the fire house and Lena snorted.

“That’s bullshit. That boy is so gone for you, he broadcasts it with his eyes every time he looks at you. If you’re not getting the transmission, you’re more dense than I thought, Diaz.”

“Ouch.”

Lena handed him the carton in response.

“I should be in there, getting him away from Josh,” Eddie said. “We had a pact, that _I_ set up, to save each other from anyone trapping us under the mistletoe this week. Guess I just assumed I’d be saving him from women, not men. It threw me. I’d never really thought of Buck dating other guys. And Josh is a nice guy, and he’s clearly into Buck...”

“ _Other_ guys?”

Eddie swore under his breath.

“I think they call that a Freudian slip, Diaz. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. But if you said you had his back and you’re out here moping about the fact he’s just _talking_ to another guy...”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Nothing ever is with you.”

“So come on then, what do you think I should do then?” Eddie challenged her, repressing the spark of hope her words had kindled in his chest. “Because I’m all out of ideas.”

Lena shrugged.

“Well you could go all in. March back in there right now and kiss him in front of everyone.”

“Oh, that’s _so_ not happening.”

“Thought not.”

“I’m guessing that’s what you’d do?”

“What have you got to lose? That’s what mistletoe’s for!”

“Easy for you to say. If it all goes wrong then I lose my best friend, my son’s best friend, and ruin the best working partnership I’ve ever had.”

“Ooh, now it’s my turn to be burned! What about _our_ working partnership, Diaz?”

But she was grinning as she took the carton back.

“It’s fine, I know he’s the other half of you. Which is why I don’t get why you won’t make the first move. You’ve gotta know that he feels the same way you do. Did you not see the two of you at the gingerbread bake off? That was practically soft core porn!”

Eddie pulled a face at her, then shook his head.

“I can’t risk ruining everything we have.”

“So you’re just gonna sit out here brooding instead, and watch him slip away into someone else’s arms?”

“He’d be happier there than in mine.”

“Doubtful.”

“I come with baggage. A dead ex-wife and a kid? Who wants that?”

“Well clearly Buck does, or he wouldn’t be sending heart eyes your way every time he looks at you. And doesn’t he spend literally every day with you and your son anyway?”

Eddie nodded an acknowledgement, grateful that Chris was distracted by Harry and Denny right now so he didn’t have to put on a happy face for him.

“Are you worried your kid won’t like you dating Buck?” Lena asked. “Maybe he’d like it.”

“I’m almost positive he would,” Eddie replied. “But that’s another risk too. What if it doesn’t work out? Then I lose my best friend and break my son’s heart too. I couldn’t do that to Christopher.”

“Or it could work out. And you could all be happy.”

Eddie didn’t respond, staring out into the night, and Lena sighed.

“Sounds like you’re looking for excuses not to give this a go. And if that’s because you’re not into him, fine. But I think you are. And I’m telling you, if you walked back in there now and told him how you felt, Buck would tell you exactly what you want to hear. I think you’re just looking for reasons not to because you’re scared.”

“Of course I’m scared. This is different from everything I’ve ever known. I haven’t dated anyone since Shannon, I’ve only ever been with women –”

“And how’s that been working out for you?”

Eddie glared at her and she shrugged.

“I’m just sayin’, maybe it’s time to try something new. You never know, you might learn something.”

“I won’t _learn_ anything because I’m not _doing_ anything. I’m not acting upon this. It’s too much of a risk. We could lose everything.”

“Well _you_ might be alright with denying yourself happiness, but what about Buck’s happiness? Or Christopher’s?”

“I would give everything I have to make Chris happy. He’s part of the reason why I can’t do this, why I can’t risk screwing everything up.” Eddie sighed and stared up at the sky. “And Buck will find someone who can give him what he needs.” He added the last four words in a voice so soft it was almost a whisper. “Who wouldn’t love him?”

*

“Lena didn’t sound hopeful,” Hen told Chimney the next day in a low voice, as they finished getting changed in the locker room.

“What, Eddie doesn’t feel the same way Buck does?”

“No, she’s pretty sure he does. But she also said that Eddie’s convinced himself that the risk is too high, so he’s not going to act on it.”

“And Maddie said that Buck’s too scared to act on it either in case he loses Eddie and Christopher,” Chimney added. They exchanged a look.

“I dunno about you, Chim, but I’m out of ideas,” Hen said, bending to tie her bootlaces. “If they’ve both convinced themselves that this can’t work, maybe it can’t. Maybe Athena’s right, and we should just stop meddling and leave them to it.”

Chimney shook his head.

“No, I don’t accept that.”

“Chim. Face facts. We can’t force them to confess their feelings if they’re not ready to. It’s not our place to out them.”

“I know that. But we’re their friends. We’d support them.”

“Not everyone out there’s as understanding as we are,” Hen said grimly.

“You think that matters to them?”

“Not to Buck. But I think it’ll matter to Eddie.”

Hen patted Chimney’s shoulder.

“I appreciate the romantic in you, Chim. But maybe you and Maddie have watched too many Hallmark movies. Life doesn’t work like that.”

Chimney stood up, shaking his head.

“I just don’t get it. They’re annoyingly perfect for each other. It should be a no-brainer.”

Hen finished tying her laces, sat back and sighed

“I know. But maybe we’re wrong. Maybe it’s just not meant to be.”

*

The 118 were holding their Christmas party that afternoon at the end of shift, so they were all hoping for an easy round of calls that day. Around lunchtime, they took a call to an office block in Downtown, where a Christmas party got a little out of control when a flaming Christmas pudding set the fifteenth floor alight. Luckily there were no casualties, so the 118 were only required to put the fire out and check that the floor was still structurally sound.

“Who even has Christmas puddings in LA?” Eddie asked, as he and Buck carried the hoses back out of the building to their truck. The rest of the crew followed behind.

“Some British expat,” Buck replied. “It’s got such a high alcohol content I’m not surprised it went up. Did you know that they hide silver coins in Christmas puddings in England? It’s good luck for the whole year if you find it.”

“Of course I didn’t,” Eddie said, shaking his head and unable to stop himself from smiling fondly at Buck. “And of course you did.”

They’d reached the side of the truck by now, and started heaving the hoses back into place.

“I wanna know why they’re still working with only two days until Christmas,” Buck continued. “In an office! I thought they all shut down for two weeks.”

“Guess high finance doesn’t stop, even for the holidays.”

“Ha!”

Chimney’s cry of triumph broke into their conversation and struck fear into Eddie’s very soul, as he danced into view with a look of glee – and relief? – on his face.

“The Fire Truck of Love claims two more victims!”

_Oh no._

Buck and Eddie slowly turned their gazes upwards, and Eddie’s stomach swooped, even though he already knew what he was about to see. Dangling menacingly over their heads was a sprig of mistletoe. They had stepped right under it – together – without even realising. No one else could have made Eddie forget about that mistletoe but Buck. He always brought Eddie’s guard down. And now he was trapped under the mistletoe with him. And their pact wasn’t about to save them from each other.

_Dios mio._

Beside him, Buck was laughing it off.

“Oh come on guys, you’re not serious?”

“ _We_ did it,” Hen reminded him. She and Chimney blocked them in, arms folded, grinning jubilantly, and suddenly Eddie felt like he was fourteen and playing Spin the Bottle.

“That hardly counts,” Buck scoffed.

“Why does this then?” Hen challenged, with an innocent tone in her voice that Eddie didn’t trust one bit. His heart rate was rising. He didn’t think he’d felt this afraid under fire in Afghanistan, not when facing earthquakes or fires or bombs. But this was something else. This was too much.

Eddie cast around desperately for a way out, any way out, and landed on Bobby.

“Come on guys, we’re out in public! Cap, say something.”

His voice sounded panicked. He needed to get it together.

“Rules are rules, boys,” Bobby said, and Eddie could hear an amused smile in his voice that flickered in his eyes. “Don’t take too long though. We’ve got a party to get to this afternoon.”

He climbed back into the truck as though that settled it, as if he was uninterested in the outcome, though Eddie noticed he’d sat where he could still see them. Traitor.

“You heard the man. Suck it up and get on with it,” Chim said, the smirk on his face telling them just how much he was enjoying the moment.

“Fine, I’m game,” Buck said. “It’s just one kiss, right?”

He was grinning like it was no big deal, like this was all some kind of joke to him. Eddie wished he could look as calm and unbothered, but his stomach was twisting up in knots. He couldn’t do this. In public. In front of their team. With Buck. He couldn’t trust himself.

Buck slowly removed his helmet and ruffled his hair.

“Just so you know, Chim, if any photo or video of this makes its way to Maddie, you might not live to see your baby girl.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Buckaroo.”

Buck’s smile just about held, but Eddie noticed the way he stood, holding his helmet awkwardly in front of him, first one way, then another, not quite sure what to do with it. Eddie had never seen him this unsure of himself before. With a sigh, Hen took pity on him and lifted the helmet out of his hands, tucking it away under her arm.

Then they were all looking at Eddie, and he knew that his options had run out. Short of a lightning strike (not impossible, but unlikely), or an emergency call (where’s a fire when you need one?), they were doing this. His throat dried up.

“Fine, let’s get this over with,” he muttered, yanking his helmet off too. Chimney held out a hand to take it, but Eddie shook his head. It was infinitely safer to have something to hold on to that wasn’t Buck, somewhere he could put his hands without having them roam into dangerous territory. And gripping onto the helmet might just stop his hands from shaking too.

“It won’t be that bad, Eddie,” Buck said cheerfully. “Chim gave me some gum earlier, I’ve been chewing it all morning. You won’t find anyone more minty fresh this side of a dentist’s chair.”

“Yeah, and if the number of women in Los Angeles we’ve seen Buck with over the years is any indication, he might actually be quite good at this kissing thing,” Chim quipped, blowing a bubble with his own gum.

“Well, I’ve never had any complaints,” Buck said, but his smile only held until he and Eddie were face to face. His confident expression flickered, and Eddie saw instead an emotion so alien to Buck that it took him a moment to place it. He was nervous too. And, as their eyes met, they recognised that same fear in each other. Eddie drew strength from it, and found his voice again.

“Yeah, no complaints until you open your mouth,” he retorted, and Buck laughed against his will.

They still hadn’t moved any closer, and Chimney and Hen began to lose patience.

“Do you want us to talk you through it?” Chim asked.

“Yeah, I mean you’ve both kissed girls before,” Hen pointed out. “This really isn’t that different.”

“Easy for you to say,” Eddie muttered.

“Just do it!” Chim shouted.

Eddie took a deep breath, pysching himself up. He felt like he was on the edge of a cliff, about to throw himself off, without a rope to hold him steady. As they took a step closer, he caught Buck’s eye, and he shot Eddie a nervous smile that was nearly his undoing. Then, as if they’d agreed to just do it from that eye contact, they leant in, and their lips finally met underneath the mistletoe.

This was not Eddie’s first kiss. He was 30 years old, he’d been married. But right now he may as well be a teenager again. He’d fully intended to just lean in, go for a quick peck on the lips, and then move away. Job done. But as soon as he kissed Buck, he knew that just wasn’t possible.

Buck’s lips were softer than Eddie expected. Maybe because his were always a bit rough and chapped, he thought Buck’s might be the same. But this was like nothing he could ever have expected. The initial, light brush deepened, and their lips pressed together more insistently. Eddie’s breath caught, and he breathed Buck in. The scent of smoke still clung to him from their last call, mingled with his aftershave, something Eddie had always associated with him but never really noticed before now. He took another breath, soaking it in, and the rush was like an instant high. And maybe, just maybe, Buck was feeling that too. His hands drifted lightly to Eddie’s arms when they started kissing; now they were bunched into fists, gripping his arms, holding him closer.

The seconds ticked by, and Eddie knew that, if he didn’t pull away soon, he would fall into this kiss like quicksand and never stop. He could see it so clearly in his head: dropping his helmet to the floor with a thud, closing the gap between their bodies completely and pulling Buck roughly against him, one hand on his waist and one on his shoulder. He could see Buck teasing his mouth open, his tongue colliding with Eddie’s, and a moan nearly escaped him at the thought. He could see their arms wrapped tightly around each other, stumbling back against the side of the fire truck. A future spiralled out in front of him that he never dreamed possible, opening up to him in a blast of sunlight.

With superhuman effort, Eddie finally drew back. He was only strong enough to move half a step back, still close enough that he could kiss Buck again, if he wanted to. There was no ‘if’ about it really. And if Buck kissed him first, Eddie knew that strength would fail him altogether.

Buck looked how Eddie felt, like he just took a blow to the head in a fight. And looking at him, lips still tingling with the sensation of Buck’s mouth against his, Eddie knew the answer to the question that had plagued him every day for more than a year. For one golden moment, he was utterly certain of everything in the world: his feelings, Buck’s feelings, and the possibility of that future he had never allowed himself to imagine before now.

But then reality returned.

Eddie had destroyed his marriage. It was thanks to him that Shannon left Texas, and their marriage, and their son. He was the reason she came to LA, and because of that, because of him, she was dead and Christopher was growing up without a mother. He was toxic to the people he loved. He couldn’t let what happened to Shannon happen to Buck.

It was too much, too overwhelming. The barriers rose again, as Eddie forced himself to tear his gaze away from Buck, over to Hen and Chim, who were gawping unashamedly at them.

“OK, show’s over, you happy now?” Eddie’s voice was rough, almost angry. And maybe he was. Angry that they forced him and Buck into this, angry that they shattered his uncomplicated world view and forced him to be so vulnerable, so publicly. That Hen and Chimney and Bobby and Buck, especially Buck, exposed the secret he had fought so hard to keep. And angry that the one thing he desperately wanted more than anything was something he just couldn’t let himself have.

Eddie threw open the door to the truck cab and climbed up as quickly as possible, determinedly avoiding Buck’s gaze, before anyone could see just how off-balance he felt. His whole world had tilted on its axis, and he couldn’t trust his feet to hold him up right now.


	4. All I Want For Christmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of their kiss under the mistletoe, Buck and Eddie have to decide where they go from here...

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“Umm, I’ve had a bit of an accident decorating my house...”

*

Buck thought he was ready for this.

He thought they could laugh this off, make light of it. He thought he was calm. He’d survived a grenade, an earthquake, a tsunami, being crushed by a fire truck. How could this be any harder? He’d kept his feelings hidden – at least, he thought he had – for nearly two years now. It was just a dare. Just a quick kiss under the mistletoe. Easy.

As soon as his lips met Eddie’s, Buck realised just how wrong he was. There was no coming back from this.

It started off softly, but then one of them, maybe both of them, deepened the kiss, lips moving more urgently, breaths coming short and fast. The rest of the world faded out. Though Buck’s eyes were closed, every one of his other senses was full of Eddie. His lips, which were just a little rough and chapped against Buck’s. The smell and taste of Eddie’s skin against his, making Buck’s head spin. And even being this close didn’t feel enough. Buck’s hands, which rested lightly on Eddie’s arms when they first moved in, clenched tightly into fists and pulled him just a little bit closer, trying to absorb as much of him as possible.

It was probably only seconds later when Eddie pulled away. Buck gulped down lungfuls of air and they stared at each other. For one wild moment the urge to kiss Eddie again was overwhelming. Buck was half a second away from lunging forward and doing just that when he saw the shutters go down over Eddie’s eyes, halting him in his tracks.

“OK, show’s over, you happy now?”

Anger laced Eddie’s words as he jumped back on the truck, not meeting Buck’s eye.

Buck felt like he’d just resurfaced from the depths of the ocean; disoriented, unsure which way was up. His lips tingled, and he was pretty sure the skin around his mouth was red from the graze of stubble. Eddie’s scent still lingered on him, familiar, everyday aromas of smoke and deodorant, but combined they made his head spin because it was _Eddie_. They should bottle that scent. It was more powerful than any drug out there.

But his best friend’s stony face pierced through this dazed joy, sinking like a leaden weight in his chest. Buck knew that this had just been a dare, but it didn’t feel like a dare when they were caught up in the moment. It didn’t feel like a dare when he felt Eddie’s breath catch and he deepened the pressure of his lips against Buck’s.

Chim whooped, victorious, and jumped back on the truck after Eddie. Hen handed back Buck’s helmet with a strange expression on her face, and Buck felt a little exposed under her gaze.

“You alright, Buck?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

It was an automatic response. He wasn’t fine. Not even close. And he wasn’t sure Hen believed him. But, before she could say anything else, Bobby banged on the window to get their attention and the truck lights flashed on.

“Time to go!”

Buck had never been so grateful for a call as he was right then.

*

The ride was silent but heavy, loaded with tension. Buck tapped his foot nervously the whole way there, darting glances at Eddie every few minutes. Eddie seemed to have retreated into himself, staring straight ahead at the back wall of the truck. His expression was stony, his back ramrod straight. Hen bit her lip. He’d fallen back into Soldier Mode, a defence against unwelcome emotions, and was the first one off the truck when they pulled up. Buck jumped off after him and hurried to catch him up.

“I feel awful,” Hen confessed quietly to Chimney.

“They’ll figure it out. With a kiss like that? There’s no way –”

“Read the room, Chim. Did you see Eddie’s face afterwards? I think we’ve made a huge mistake.”

They leapt off the truck too, just in time to witness Buck and Eddie’s conversation.

“Hey, Eddie. About earlier, it was no big deal, right? It was just a joke, you know, Chim’s Fire Truck of...Love...”

Buck stumbled over the word ‘love’ and trailed off, flushing, as Eddie slammed the side panel and followed Bobby towards the house, still avoiding eye contact.

“Maybe it’s easy for you and them to laugh it off, make some big joke of it.”

“It’s a Christmas tradition. What else could we have done? I don’t know why you’re getting so bent out of shape about it –”

“I’m busy, Buck. I haven’t got time to talk about some stupid dare.”

Eddie strode past him, and Hen and Chimney exchanged guilty glances. Buck watched him go and ran a hand through his hair, his face distraught.

“Where’s our casualty?” Chimney asked, a little too loudly, trying to ride out the awkwardness.

“Over here,” Bobby called.

A grey-haired man dangled from the roof, the string of lights wrapped around his ankle the only thing that had stopped him hitting the ground headfirst.

“Hey buddy, LAFD, what’s your name?” Chim asked.

“Joe.”

“OK Joe, can you tell me happened?”

“I was trying to put up the Christmas lights and I slipped.”

“Little late for Christmas decorations,” Bobby said curiously, as they took hold of Joe, lifted him to take the pressure off his ankle, and carefully lowered him to the ground as they disentangled the lights.

“It’s for my daughter. She lives on the east coast, and she wasn’t going to be coming back to LA this year because of work.” He blinked, and tears sparkled in his eyes. “It’s just been the two of us since my wife died. I hadn’t decorated at all this year...I didn’t see the point just for me. But when Jennifer called me today to tell me she was able to get some time off last minute, I had to make an effort for her.”

Hen saw Buck’s face light up with concern and empathy, and he edged closer to Bobby as she and Chimney examined Joe’s ankle and took his vitals.

“Bobby, can we do something for him?” Buck asked in a low voice.

“What did you have in mind?”

Buck picked up the offending string of lights and looked back at the house.

*

A short time later, a second fire truck pulled up alongside theirs.

“Captain Cooper, Firefighter Bosko,” Bobby called to two of the occupants as they jumped down.

“Captain Nash,” Captain Cooper said, as Lena nodded and sidled over to Hen and Chimney. “I understand you could do with some help decorating a house?”

“I got your SOS and convinced my captain to swing by,” Lena said in a low voice to Hen and Chimney. “What happened?”

“Christmas carnage,” Hen replied.

“We finally got them under the mistletoe,” Chimney explained, and Lena’s eyes widened.

“ _No way!_ ”

“Yeah, and they nearly spontaneously combusted on the spot.”

“Damn.”

“And then Eddie freaked out.”

“Damn.”

  
“And now they’re not speaking.”

Lena whistled.

“So what do we do now?”

“Can you talk to Eddie again?” Hen asked her. “I’ll talk to Buck.”

Lena sighed.

“I’m on it.”

*

The 118 and the 136 divided the decorating between them. While Captain Cooper took most of his crew indoors to finish the inside of the house, the 118 carried on Joe’s work outside while he watched from a lawn chair with Bobby, on the strict understanding that he would come with them to the emergency room for an x-ray afterwards.

Up on the roof, Lena was stringing lights, as Eddie unwound them on the ground below and passed them up.

“So, I hear something happened…?” Lena said tentatively, leaning over the edge of the roof to watch Eddie’s reaction. He met her gaze with a resigned expression.

“Hen and Chimney tell you?”

“Can’t reveal my sources,” Lena shook her head and paused, waiting to see if Eddie would continue the conversation. When he didn’t, she added in a low voice, “So...you and Buck kissed?”

Eddie nodded shortly.

“How was it?”

For a moment, she didn’t think he’d answer her. Then the smallest of smiles flickered across his lips.

“Fucking incredible.”

Lena’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

“ _Really?_ ”

“Yeah. Best first kiss of my life.”

Eddie’s face and neck had flushed a deep red, and Lena bit her lip hard to stop herself teasing him about it. She could see how much it had already cost him to say that much aloud.

“So…” she prompted instead.

“So... _what_?”

“So what happens next?”

“Nothing.” Eddie sighed and looked up at her. “I, uh, didn’t handle it very well.”

“Now t _here’s_ a surprise. What did you do?”

“Stormed off. Then bit Buck’s head off when he tried to talk about it.”

Lena shook her head as she finished fastening the lights to the roof.

“Great work, Diaz.”

“I panicked, OK?”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Oh, I don’t know, Lena – maybe because I just kissed the guy I’m –” Eddie stopped abruptly, shook his head. “Buck. In front of everyone. And putting myself out there like that...I don’t do that. I’ve gotta pull it back. I can’t let things change.”

“Eddie, everything’s _already_ changed.” Lena shimmied to the edge of the roof, lowered herself over and dropped back to ground level. “You kissed, on a dare, in public, in front of your team, and it’s the best first kiss you’ve ever had. _That_ _means something_. It changes everything. You can’t put the genie back in the bottle now and pretend nothing happened.”

*

“How you hanging in there, Buck?”

Hen cornered Buck setting out some light-up reindeer on the lawn. A shadow crossed his face, and he ducked his head to avoid her gaze.

“Fine.”

“Liar.”

Buck’s head shot up again, annoyance flashing across his face.

“What do you want me to say, Hen? I just destroyed the best friendship I’ve ever had, but yeah, I’m great.”

“It’s not your fault –”

“I should _never_ have agreed to go along with it. I knew this would happen.” Buck’s gaze strayed across the lawn, landing on Eddie and Lena stringing lights across the roof. “Now I’ve lost him. He’s never gonna talk to me again.”

“You haven’t lost him, Buck. We know he feels the same way you do. We all thought this was inevitable eventually – the mistletoe was just the final push.”  
Buck’s eyes closed, realisation dawning on his face.

“This was all a set up, wasn’t it? The truck, the mistletoe...you were trying to force us together.”

“Not _force_ you, just try and nudge you over the line. I really thought that if you kissed, that would be it.”

“It is. It’s the end of the best thing in my life.”

“I’m so sorry, Buck. It wasn’t our place to put you in that position. Chim and I really thought that it would work out. You and Eddie are perfect for each other.”

Buck gave a bitter laugh.

“Clearly we’re not.”

He strode away, turning back to examine the decorations on the house.

“Give him time,” Hen found herself repeating Chimney’s optimistic line, her voice tinged with desperation. “Maybe he just needs a minute to catch up.”

“Why does he _need_ to catch up? Either he feels the same way or he doesn’t. I figured out how I felt. Why does it have to be so hard?”

“Because love isn’t always so simple as saying those three words. Sometimes it involves being braver than you’ve ever been before, just to live your truth.”

“I’m not ashamed or afraid of who I am or how I feel.”

“I know you’re not, and _I_ love that about you. But Eddie’s not like that.”

Buck sighed and shook his head, frustration and pain warring on his face. Hen reached over and touched his arm.

“Don’t give up on him yet, Buck.”

*

The decorating wrapped just as Joe’s daughter Jennifer pulled up in a cab. Once she’d got over the shock of seeing two fire trucks in front of the lawn and her dad in bandages, she teared up at the joint effort that had gone into decorating the house for her. She hugged everyone she could reach, then insisted that they leave and called an Uber for her and her dad to take them to the emergency room so they wouldn’t take up any more of the crews’ time.

Unfortunately, the happiness they left the scene with quickly wilted and died as the 118 climbed back in the truck. From there, the journey back to the fire house was shot through with awkwardness. Eddie and Buck sat as far apart as they could manage, still avoiding each other’s eye. Chimney grimaced, trying to ignore the guilt worming its way through his stomach. He’d been so sure this would work. Get them under the mistletoe, and they’d have no choice but to confront the feelings that had been so obvious to everyone else for so long. But now he was starting to worry that Hen and Athena were right. Maybe all their well-intended meddling had just ruined everything.

“So...where are you spending Christmas Day, Buckaroo?” Chimney asked, striving for casual. Buck pulled his gaze from the window to answer him.

“Josh invited me to drinks and karaoke with some friends of his. Guess I might do that.”

Across from Buck, still determinedly not looking at him, Eddie’s jaw clenched.

“What, like a _date_?” Chim asked, then mentally kicked himself as he saw Eddie’s expression darken out of the corner of his eye.

“No, like a _friend_.”

“Sure, because he was really giving you _friend_ vibes at the station the other night,” Hen snorted disbelievingly. Buck shrugged.

“He’s a nice guy. And I’d be alone otherwise. Why not?”

They all heard Eddie huff out a low breath, still staring fixedly at the back wall of the truck.

“You got a problem with that?” Buck asked him shortly. Eddie tensed at the direct address, and tried unconvincingly to pass for casual.

“Christmas is a time for family. Not for random hook ups with the nearest pair of lips.”

Buck’s eyes flashed.

“Since when was it any of your business?” he asked heatedly. He looked like he wanted to say more, but the truck pulled back into the station at that moment, and Chimney and Hen both sighed with relief. Buck shot Eddie a withering look instead before he jumped out and marched away. Hen followed him, and Chimney glanced at Eddie.

“Dude, you don’t get to blow him off and then get jealous if he chooses to spend Christmas with someone else.”

Eddie ran a hand through his hair, leaning forward over his knees.

“I just keep screwing this up. This is why the mistletoe was such a bad idea. I have no playbook for this. I suck at relationships, I just hurt everyone I care about.”

“I’d go for damage control first and worry about the rest later,” Chimney offered. He paused. “Did you even invite Buck to spend the holidays with you and Christopher?”

Eddie shook his head regretfully.

“No. I didn’t realise it was even an option. I thought he’d be with you and Maddie.”

“Yeah, we kind of kicked Buck and Albert out and said we wanted to be on our own for the last time before Baby Buckley-Han arrives.”

Eddie exhaled.

“Wish I’d known _that_ before I ran my mouth off.”

He sighed and looked at the ground again, lost in his thoughts. Chimney shifted uncomfortably as Hen’s words came back to him.

“Look, Eddie, we didn’t mean to out you or anything with the mistletoe and the kiss...I’m sorry if we’ve made things worse.”

Eddie laughed without humour.

“That’s the thing. The more I think about it, the less that bothers me. It’s just...I’ve kept a lid on all these feelings for so long, pretended to myself that they meant nothing.” He met Chim’s gaze. “I’m not ashamed of how I feel. I’m afraid of what it could do to us. We could lose everything.”

Eddie leaned back and sighed, staring at the ceiling of the truck without seeing it. “Buck and I have crossed a line. We can’t step back over and pretend it didn’t happen. And I don’t know how we go forward from here.”

Chimney thought about it for a moment, hesitant to give advice after all the chaos he’d inadvertently wreaked with the Fire Truck of Love. But Eddie looked so lost that he couldn’t leave it alone.

“Look, I know I suck at this even more than you do, but do you know what I would do if I were you?”

“Date him casually for a year and then tell him I love him after my friends forced me to do it?”

Chimney pulled a face at him.

“ _Ha ha_. No, I’d ask him to spend the holidays with me.”

Eddie bit his lip, and Chimney patted his shoulder as he climbed out of the truck.

“Ask him, Eddie. He’ll say yes.”

*

Their shift over, the 118 and their families crowded into the fire house for their pre-Christmas party. Holiday songs floated around the loft like the scent of eggnog and mulled wine, both of which Eddie was avoiding. Being in the same room as Buck was distracting enough, even if they weren’t speaking. The memory of their kiss lingered on his skin, enough to make him feel drunk without alcohol clouding his thoughts too.

“Eddie.”

Maddie appeared by his side, her bump prominent in her Secret Santa Christmas sweater.

“I just wanted to thank you for this.”

She gestured to her stomach.

“I think Chimney’s responsible for that,” Eddie replied before he could help himself.

“I meant the sweater.”

Eddie swore internally for his very Buck-like attempt at humour. Luckily, living with Chimney meant Maddie was used to all sorts of jokes, and she smiled as she answered him.

“How did you know it was me?” Eddie asked.

“I didn’t.” Her eyes sought Buck out across the loft, and Eddie’s eyes followed automatically. “Buck guessed it was you. Apparently he can read you pretty well.”

_Too well_ , Eddie thought, but he managed to avoid saying it out loud.

“Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you,” Maddie said, running a hand absent-mindedly across her bump. “It’s perfect.”

Eddie smiled at her.

“I just remembered what it felt like to have Christopher. He’s the greatest gift anyone could have given me. Even though things didn’t work out with Shannon, I will always be grateful to her for bringing him into my life.”

Maddie nodded.

“You do such a great job with him, he’s such a lovely kid. He’s a credit to you. I’m so excited about being a mom, but I’m a little nervous too. I mean, our parents weren’t exactly shining examples.”

“You’re going to be great,” Eddie assured her, resisting the temptation to quiz her on the mysterious Buckley parents. Buck’s silence on the subject had always intrigued him, and their conspicuous absence at Buck’s hospital bed the last few years told him that their relationship was far from ideal. But now wasn’t the time to ask, especially if Maddie was nervous about repeating their mistakes.

“No one thinks they’re ready to be parents, but you figure it out as you go,” he continued. “You and Chimney will be just fine. And you won’t be alone – you’ve got us. I mean, I have a lot of help with Chris. My aunt, my abuela, Carla, Buck...”

“You’d have to pry Buck away from Christopher,” Maddie laughed. “He adores him.”

“Chris worships him. I don’t know what we’d do without Buck sometimes,” Eddie admitted shyly, because it felt like he was confessing to a lot more than just how indispensable Buck was to Christopher’s care.

“You’re good for him too, you know,” Maddie said quietly, touching his arm briefly. “Of all the people in Buck’s life – including me – you’re the only one who’s ever stayed.”

And as her words sank in, Eddie realised that the same was true for him. All he’d ever wanted was someone who would stay. And he’d stumbled across that person two years ago, forged that bond over a live grenade – without even realising it.

“Let’s just say I can relate,” he said.

*

Eddie was still lost in his own thoughts some time later when Bobby appeared by his side and offered him a mince pie, which he took with murmured thanks, barely seeing it or his captain.

“When we were ice skating the other day, Christopher had to take a break because he was tired,” Bobby said suddenly, and Eddie looked up automatically at the mention of his son. “One of the crew came over to check on him, and saw him waving to you and Buck. She asked Christopher if you were his dads, and said that you were a cute couple. He agreed with her.”

Eddie stared at Bobby incredulously. He had the strangest sensation of floating, as if his body wasn’t his own anymore.

“Christopher said that?”

Bobby nodded, smiling sympathetically.

“Eddie, Christopher is already there. I don’t think you need to worry about him. And I’m fairly sure you know how Buck feels by now. The only person still left to convince is you.”

Eddie blew out a breath, leaning back against the kitchen counter. He realised, belatedly, that this was the bench he and Buck had used for the gingerbread bake off, and the memories flooded in. Buck brushing flour off his shoulders and glitter out of his hair. The feeling of Buck’s mouth around his finger. The sparkle in his blue eyes as he held Eddie’s gaze. The overwhelming want that left an ache in the pit of Eddie’s stomach. He’d never wanted someone so badly as he’d wanted Buck that night. There was nothing in this world he wanted more than that future he’d glimpsed with Buck when they kissed. But...

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

The fear finally found a voice, and he almost whispered it to Bobby. His captain regarded him kindly.

“You could date anyone and it might not work out. Doesn’t mean you should be alone forever.”

“This is different. This matters more.”

“And why does it matter more?” Bobby pushed gently.

“Because if it goes wrong...”

Eddie’s eyes flicked automatically across the loft to his best friend, who was talking to Maddie and putting on an unconvincing show of Christmas cheer. “I can’t lose Buck,” he said quietly.

“Who says you will?”

Bobby put a hand to Eddie’s shoulder.

“I’m not here to tell you what you should do, Eddie, and I’ll stand by whatever decision you make. But I told you once before that you shouldn’t have to lose everything in order to feel something. I think Buck makes you feel something, and that scares you, so you tell yourself you’ll lose everything if you act on those feelings when, actually, you might find something that the both of you have been searching for, for a really long time.”

*

Buck leaned back against a loft beam, riding the current of festive joy in the loft and trying very hard to immerse himself in it. His gaze drifted over to Eddie and Christopher, who were doing some colouring at the dining table. It surprised him that not going over to them caused him physical pain. He wanted to see Chris’s artwork come to life, to catch Eddie’s eye over his head and wonder at how talented this kid was, or to share smiles when they didn’t quite know what he was drawing. Being included as an honorary member of the Diaz family was a gift that Buck didn’t think he’d ever really appreciated enough until now. If he could have foreseen how much a simple kiss under the mistletoe would mess everything up, he would have flat out refused to do it. Never mind how incredible that kiss had been, how much he wanted to continue it and see exactly where it would lead...he had already risked and lost too much.

“Can anyone help me? I’m kinda lost.”

The sound of a woman’s voice drifting up from the ground floor was a welcome interruption. Buck tore his gaze away from Eddie and Christopher and leaned over the edge of the railing. An attractive young Asian-American woman met his gaze and smiled. Perfect distraction. Buck loped down the stairs to meet her.

“Is everything OK?”

“Yeah, I’m just trying to get to Koreatown.”

“Sure.”

Buck rattled off some directions and showed her the map on his phone.

“Thank you,” the girl said, flashing him a wide smile. “How about I repay you with...?”

She flicked her eyes upwards, and when Buck’s gaze followed hers he understood. They were stood under the 118’s truck, and that damn mistletoe was still attached to it. Buck wished he’d snatched it down and burned it after he’d kissed Eddie. And now he was trapped under it with this random girl. The old Buck would have leapt at the chance. A kiss under the mistletoe with a pretty girl. But the old Buck was long gone. In his place stood a man who had given his heart away to his best friend without even realising.

“How about we just stick with the directions and I wish you happy holidays?” Buck said, as gently as he could manage. The girl looked disappointed, but covered it well.

“Well, thanks anyway. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Buck watched her go to make sure she left the fire house. He didn’t notice the footsteps ringing out out on the concrete floor behind him until it was too late.

“I hear it’s not like you to turn a good-looking woman down.”

Buck’s stomach lurched. It took a minute before he could turn around, before he could school his face into dismissive and casual. When his eyes found Eddie’s, his expression was shuttered off and unreadable too.

“Yeah, well, she wasn’t my type,” Buck said with a shrug.

“I’ve heard that before.”

They’d both said it, two years ago at a bar where a girl got so wasted she decided to stick her head in a tailpipe on a dare and got stuck. The girls at the bar had been falling over themselves to hit on Buck and Eddie that day. Buck had blown them off and dismissed them as not his type. If only he’d known then that ‘his type’ had been standing right next to him.

“Yeah, well, everyone thinks they know me. Maybe none of you know me quite so well as you think you do.”

He made to walk away, not in the mood to talk. Eddie put up a hand and placed it lightly against Buck’s chest, stopping him in his tracks. Buck wished he couldn’t do that with just one touch. Just one look. Just one word.

“Buck.”

Buck shot Eddie a look of his own, and knew the hurt he was feeling must be showing when he caught a glimmer of guilt in Eddie’s eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to care anymore.

“I’m sorry about blowing you off earlier. That wasn’t fair of me.”

Buck sighed.

“I didn’t want to embarrass you, Eddie. But Hen and Chimney weren’t going to let it go, so I thought it would be easier to go along with it than make a big deal of it.”

“Was it a big deal to you?” Eddie asked suddenly, looking at Buck with that piercing expression of his that was half curiosity, half-frown. It was like he could see right through him with that look, and Buck wondered why he even asked the question at all, because surely the answer was obvious.  
“Was it to you?”

Buck stalled for time, throwing the question back at him. Eddie called him out on it instantly.

“I asked first.”

“Why, because you’re scared of having to answer it yourself?”

Buck knew by Eddie’s face that his hunch was right, and for some reason it made him mad.

“Yeah, it was a big deal to me, Eddie. I wish I could say the same for you.”

“You wish?”

Shit.

Oh well, no hiding from the truth now. Seemed the secret he’d fought so hard to keep, with little success if the reactions of the rest of the crew was anything to go by, was out.

“Yeah, I wish, Eddie,” Buck said hotly. “Yeah, it meant a lot to me. You’ve no idea. You’re my best friend, and I wouldn’t change that for the world but...how I feel, about you...I can’t lie to myself, or to you, and pretend it’s just friendly anymore. I...I’ve never felt like this before. And I’m sorry. Because I know that’s not where you’re at. And I never would’ve told you. But this stupid dare...it’s a little hard to hide your feelings when you’re kissing the guy you’re crazy about.”

Oh boy. That was a bit more than he intended to say. Eddie always said Buck was good at shooting his mouth off, and now he’d proved him right. There was no way of just passing it off as a joke or a dare after that. Buck leant back against the side of the truck and let out a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding in a whoosh of air. No going back now.

Buck didn’t know how long they stood there for, staring at the mistletoe without really seeing it and imagining the various ways he could use it to kill Chim for sending a wrecking ball through his life. He was so wrapped up in these murderous thoughts that Eddie’s question threw him.

“How do you know it wasn’t?”

“What?”

“How do you know it wasn’t a big deal to me?”

Slowly, Buck turned his head to look at Eddie. He still couldn’t read his expression, which rippled and changed like water. Brooding, then curious, then maybe...afraid?

“Because you freaked out and got mad at me,” Buck reminded him. “And then you blew me off and shut me down when I tried to talk about it.”

Eddie sighed, and his expression settled on frustration.

“We don’t all talk about our emotions like we’re sat with our therapist. You know that’s not me, Buck. You said it yourself: Frank and I didn’t click, because I’ve had it drilled into me not to talk about my feelings. The Army does that to you. Do you think I sat around with my buddies every night debriefing what we’d seen and felt that day? In war, you have to keep your feelings to yourself. You have to keep it all bottled up inside, so it doesn’t overwhelm you. So no one else thinks you’re the weak link in the chain.”

Eddie never talked about his time in the Army. Buck had asked, but Eddie always made light of it, skimming over the details.

“I get that, Eddie,” Buck said gently. “But you’re not at war anymore.”

Eddie shot him a half-smile, half-grimace.

“I know. But old habits die hard, you know?”

Eddie leant back against the truck next to Buck, staring straight at the ground in front of their feet.

“I’ve got better at talking, since I became a civilian again. Since I met you.” He glanced sideways, and warmth shot through Buck as their eyes met. “Because you can talk about anything, and the longer I spend with you, the more I find myself doing it too. But this isn’t just a tough call or a fight about a lawsuit. Do you have any idea how hard it was to pretend that kissing you today meant nothing to me?”

“Well you did a pretty good job of it,” Buck said, the memory still stinging.

“And you know why, Buck?” Eddie’s voice pitched higher. Buck hadn’t heard it like that since the night of the train wreck, when he told Bobby he was OK to risk of being crushed by a hundred tonnes of train car. Eddie had cut him off, panic flashing across his face, but Buck had been so wrapped up in Abby and Sam that it only really clicked now. Eddie’s next words proved him right.

“Because I was terrified,” Eddie admitted. “My life was so simple before I met you.” Buck’s eyebrows arched in disbelief, and Eddie made a face of wry acknowledgement. “Well, OK, not that simple, but I had things figured out in my head. And then you came along.”

He looked Buck right in the eye then, and it was like being caught in a spotlight.

“You came into my life, and you made it easier, and better. You love Chris like he’s your son. You accepted him, and me, as we were. You saved him. You save me, every day, just by being here and having my back. I’m happy when I’m with you. You’re my best friend, Buck. And I’ve never let myself see it as more than that. But I was lying to myself, every day, until today. And then _that_ ,” he gestured up at the mistletoe, and they briefly broke eye contact to look at this innocent-looking plant that had caused so much chaos. “That happened, and it changed _everything_.”

Buck watched Eddie push off from the truck and turn to face him. He had never had a reputation for being open and expressive. Words came easily to Buck, not Eddie. This was maybe the most he had spoken about his feelings before.

“When I kissed you, I saw a future that I never even imagined before. And it all seemed so damn easy, so simple. And this rush of feelings just swept me away. And yeah, I was mad at you. Because you turned my whole world upside down. And I just don’t know what to do with that.”

Floored, Buck gaped at Eddie. His best friend’s chest heaved with fear and exhilaration, his eyes wild, searching Buck’s face for a response. And there was only one response Buck could give right now.

He surged forward, pushing off the truck and closing the gap between them. If Eddie pushed him away he would blame it all on the mistletoe. Blame it all on Christmas. It was like the full moon, it did crazy things to people. Buck grabbed a fistful of Eddie’s t-shirt with one hand, the other going to the back of his neck as their lips collided again, kissing him with the fervour of a dying man gasping for oxygen.

Buck had held himself back for so long; shackled by the fear that his feelings wouldn’t be reciprocated, frozen by the desperate terror that rose whenever he thought that he might lose Eddie and Christopher by acting on his emotions. But now, with Eddie’s body so warm and solid against his, and mouth moving urgently against Buck’s, the only thing that scared him was how natural this felt. How it felt like something he’d been missing his whole life. Buck didn’t think a few seconds would be enough. He wasn’t sure a lifetime would be enough.

Eventually, with willpower he didn’t realise he possessed, Buck drew back, breathing hard. Eddie stared at him, face flushed and eyes wide, and Buck managed a shrug.

“I had to do it,” he said simply.

Eddie let out a breath, his chest heaving.

“Well, you managed to blow our first kiss out of the water, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

Buck watched him anxiously, worried that he might have gone too far. Regaining his composure, Eddie braced his hands on Buck’s shoulders and held his gaze.

“Believe me when I say there is nothing I want more in this world than a future with you, Buck,” he said softly. “But I am so scared that we...that _I_...would screw it all up the way I screwed up my marriage. And I couldn’t do that to you, Buck. You’re too important. To me, to Christopher. We can’t lose you. And I know it’s selfish, but that’s why I’ve never acted on it. I was too scared that acting on how I felt would destroy the best thing I’ve ever known.”

Buck traced his thumb along Eddie’s jaw, enjoying the scratch of stubble against his skin, his eyes locked on his best friend.

“I have spent my whole life watching the people I love walk away. You’re the only one who’s stayed. You won’t screw this up. And I would never leave you and Christopher. I...” Buck hesitated and bit his lip as fear clenched around his heart. Had he said too much already? Would this be a step beyond what Eddie could deal with? He shook his head. Damn it, he’d come this far. He couldn’t hold the words in anymore.

“I’m in love with you, Eddie.”

*

_Love._

The implications of that one word crashed over Eddie like a faulty shower, sending alternating hot and cold sensations down his spine.

Buck loved him. Buck _loved_ him. His best friend was in love with him.

And at that word, it was like something clicked inside him. Everything suddenly made sense. And the crippling fear that keep a death grip on his heart for so long melted away. In its place, all he could see were Buck’s steady, ocean blue eyes.

“I love you too.”

The words slipped from his mouth as easy as breathing. He practically whispered it, but he knew from the way Buck’s face lit up that he’d caught every word. And then Eddie did the one thing his body was screaming at him to do, crushing his lips against Buck’s and giving in to the wild impulses that had raged through his blood from the moment the kissed for the first time that afternoon.

Eddie grabbed Buck’s waist and pulled him flush against him with one hand. The other hand went to Buck’s shoulder, thumb grazing his collarbone. Buck nipped gently at Eddie’s lower lip with his teeth, and as Eddie sucked in a breath, Buck’s tongue found his. Eddie moaned, and his hand slid from Buck’s waist up his back, flowing over hard muscle. His other hand moved to the back of Buck’s neck, fingers twisting in his hair, dragging Buck’s body tight against his as their tongues danced together.

They slammed into the side of the fire truck. Eddie’s hands slid up to cup Buck’s face, and his hand tightened on the back of Eddie’s neck. Every nerve in Eddie’s body tingled with fire. He registered his shallow, ragged breathing, and noticed with satisfaction that Buck was just as bad. Their faces moved just a few inches apart as they gasped for air, foreheads resting against each other. Buck smiled at him, and a part of Eddie that had been so cold and shut off to emotion for so long thawed. He returned Buck’s smile, and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Eddie felt Buck’s lips curve into a grin against his, and he bit Eddie’s lower lip again. A growl escaped Eddie, and he pulled Buck’s face roughly back to his.

“You’re spending Christmas with us,” Eddie whispered fiercely, in between kisses.

“Jealous?” Buck teased, and Eddie grimaced.

“I know I have no right to be, but the thought of you with anyone else just burns me up inside.”

“It wouldn’t have been fair to Josh if I had gone along.” Buck pulled back, just far enough that he could look Eddie in the eye. “It’s always been you, Eddie.”

Eddie’s heart sang to hear those words, soothing away his irrational jealousy and quirking his lips into a soft smile.

“Seems I just took a while to catch on.” He cupped Buck’s face in his hands, brushing his thumbs across Buck’s cheekbones and marvelling at the simple fact that he could do this now. That all these months of longing were over. That the barriers he’d guarded so carefully for so long were fallen, and that future he hadn’t dared to imagine was now, inexplicably, within reach. “I told you, Christmas is a time for family. Christopher and I are your family, Buck. We’re not going anywhere.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Buck said softly, bringing his face closer to Eddie’s so their lips brushed as he spoke. “Because all I want for Christmas –”

“Is you,” Eddie finished, and pressed his lips hungrily to Buck’s once more.

*

“Maddie, Maddie, Maddie.”

Maddie had just lowered herself onto a couch in the loft, which took long enough in itself, when Chimney descended, grabbing hold of her hands to pull her back to her feet. Maddie glowered at him.

“Howie, I can barely walk. I’m bloated and gross, just leave me alone.”

“You’re beautiful, and I don’t care. You would not forgive me if I didn’t make you come see this.”

He coaxed Maddie to her feet, and she waddled after him towards the balcony, muttering under her breath. Bobby and Athena and Karen and Hen were all there already, leaning over the railing and whispering to each other. Maddie shot a confused glance at Chimney, but he shook his head, smiling, and simply pointed over the edge. Maddie frowned and joined the others. It was no small relief to lean on the railing and take the weight off her feet. Who knew a baby weighed so much? No wonder pregnant women were grouchy all the time with this constant backache and bloating.

Karen caught Maddie’s eye and placed a finger to her lips, hardly containing her smile. Maddie glanced either side of her at the others, who all wore the same, knowing smiles, gazing past Maddie and Chim to the floor of the fire house. Maddie followed their line of sight, and her hand flew to her mouth to cover her gasp.

Buck and Eddie were kissing under the mistletoe. Not just a polite peck, either, but full-on making out. Eddie had Buck pushed up against the side of their fire truck, his hands cupping Buck’s face. Buck had one hand on the back of Eddie’s neck, the other clamped around his back, pulling him in tight. They were kissing with a passion that Maddie had only ever seen in films. She’d never seen anyone kiss like that in real life: with a desperate urgency to soak every second in, to memorise every inch of skin. It felt so intimate that it almost seemed wrong to watch. But this was a moment they’d all been waiting so long for, and she found she couldn’t tear her gaze away.

Maddie had never seen Buck like this. She could see in the way he held himself, the way he held Eddie, what she could see of his face, exactly how he felt about his best friend. She’d never seen him so happy. Maddie’s chest tightened, throat clenching with the threat of tears. Damn pregnancy hormones.

“You OK?” Chim asked softly, noticing her reaction.

“Yeah.” Maddie smiled, her voice only a little choked up. “There’s just something so beautiful about watching two people in love.” The tears were really threatening now, and she dabbed at her eyes so her mascara wouldn’t run.

“Well if we stay here much longer, that’s not all we’ll be seeing,” Athena said dryly. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready for the X-rated version of this holiday movie just yet.”

But her stern expression softened as she glanced one more time at Buck and Eddie and smiled, before Bobby slipped an arm around her shoulders and they wandered back across the loft.

“Well, I’ve got to hand it to you, Chim,” Hen said. “Boundless optimism works wonders.”

“Damn straight, and with two days to spare. Pay up.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll get your twenty bucks,” Hen grumbled, but she was beaming too. She caught Karen’s eye. “How about we go find some mistletoe of our own?” Karen wiggled her eyebrows, and Chimney and Maddie laughed as they walked away too.

“I’m so glad it worked out,” Maddie sighed.

“It seems that, _despite_ our best efforts, love wins out,” Chim smiled.

He leant in to kiss Maddie and took her hand as they turned to follow the others. But not before she snuck one last look down at Buck and Eddie. They were oblivious to their audience, lost in each other. And, watching them, Maddie just felt joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much if you've stuck with every chapter. I've loved writing this Christmas story, and I really hope you've enjoyed reading it.
> 
> Merry Christmas! Here's wishing for a happier 2021 for us all X

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed Chapter 1! As always, the word count got a little out of hand...
> 
> Let me know in the comments if you have any festive requests you'd like to see in this story. I have a vague structure and quite a lot of ideas already down for the remaining three chapters, but I'm open to including any other fun holiday stuff you'd like to see.


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